I
,NAGARAJA.M.R. hereby do declare that information given above are true to the best
of my knowledge & belief.If
i am repeatedly called to police station or else where for the sake of
investigations , the losses i do incurr as a result like loss of wages ,
transportation , job , etc must be borne by the government. prevoiusly the police
/ IB personnel repeatedly called me the complainant (sufferer of injustices) to
police station for questioning , but never called the guilty culprits even once
to police station for questioning , as the culprits are high & mighty .
this type of one sided questioning must not be done by police or investigating
agencies . if anything untoward happens to me or to my family members like loss
of job , meeting with hit & run accidents , loss of lives , death due to
improper medical care , etc , the jurisdictional police together with above
mentioned accussed public servants will be responsible for it. Even if criminal
nexus levels fake charges , police file fake cases against me or my
dependents to silence me , this complaint is & will be
effective.

If I or my family
members or my dependents are denied our fundamental rights , human rights ,
denied proper medical care for ourselves , If anything untoward happens to me
or to my dependents or to my family
members - In such case Chief Justice of India
together with the jurisdictional revenue & police officials will
be responsible for it , in such case the government of india is liable to
pay Rs. TWO crore as compensation to
survivors of my family. if my whole family is eliminated by the criminal nexus
,then that compensation money must be donated to Indian Army Welfare Fund.
Afterwards , the money must be recovered by GOI as land arrears from the salary
, pension , property , etc of guilty police officials , Judges , public
servants & Constitutional fuctionaries.

date : 10.06.2013…………………………..Your's sincerely,

place : India…………………………………...Nagaraja.M.R.

Editorial : JUDGESorCriminals - SATYAMEVA JAYATE ?

The public
servants & the government must be role models in law abiding acts ,
for others to emulate & follow. if a student makes a mistake it is
excusable & can be corrected by the teacher. if the
teacher himself makes a mistake , all his students will do the same
mistake. if a thief steals , he can be caught ,
legally punished & reformed . if a police himself commits crime , many
thieves go scot- free under his patronage. even if a
police , public servant commits a crime , he can be legally prosecuted
& justice can be sought by the aggrieved. just think , if a judge
himself that too of apex court of the land itself commits crime - violations of
RTI Act , constitutional rights & human rights of public and
obstructs the public from performing their constitutional fundamental
duties , what happens ? it gives a booster dose to the rich & mighty
, those in power , criminals in public service to committ more crimes.
that is exactly what is happenning in india. the educated public must
raise to the occassion & peacefully , democratically must
oppose this criminalisation of judiciary , public service. then alone , we can
build a RAM RAJYA OF MAHATMA GANDHI'S DREAM.

Even the
supreme court of India , is not accepting our offer of service to legally
book the criminals nor is it registering our PIL nor the Karnataka police are
registering our complaint against public servants.

Our
Supreme Court Judges , police & Public Servants , preach virtues in courts
of law & other forums , but they don’t practice it themselves.

Donations: NOT ACCEPTED. Self financing .
Never accepted any donations , subscriptions either for ourselves or on behalf
of other organizations / individuals .

Monetary gains: nil , never made any monetary gain by way of
advertisements on my websites or web news paper or otherwise.

Owner/editor/printer/publisher: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Nationality: INDIAN

Body Donation: Physical
Body of Nagaraja M R , Editor , S.O.S- e – clarion of Dalit
& S.O.S-e-Voice for Justice is donated to JSS Medical
College , Mysore ( Donation No. 167 dated 22 / 10 / 2003 ) , In case of either
Unnatural death or Natural Death at the hands of criminal nexus , my body must
be handed over to JSS Medical College , Mysore for the study
purposes of medical students.

EyeDonation: Both
EYES of
Nagaraja M R , Editor , S.O.S- e – clarion of Dalit
& S.O.S-e-Voice for Justice are
donated to Mysore Eye Bank , Mysore , In case of either
Unnatural death or Natural Death at the hands of criminal nexus ,
my eyes must be handed over
to Mysore Eye Bank , Mysore WITHIN 6
Hours for immediate eye transplantation to the needy.

I ,NAGARAJA.M.R. hereby do declare that information
given above are true to the best of my knowledge & belief.If i am repeatedly called to police station or else where for the
sake of investigations , the losses i do incurr as a result like loss of wages
, transportation , job , etc must be borne by the government. prevoiusly the
police / IB personnel repeatedly called me the complainant (sufferer of
injustices) to police station for questioning , but never called the guilty
culprits even once to police station for questioning , as the culprits are high
& mighty . this type of one sided questioning must not be done by police or
investigating agencies . if anything untoward happens to me or to my family
members like loss of job , meeting with hit & run accidents , loss of lives
, death due to improper medical care , etc , the jurisdictional police together
with above mentioned accussed public servants will be responsible for it. Even
if criminal nexus levels fake charges , police file fake cases
against me or my dependents to silence me , this complaint is &
will be effective.

If I or
my family members or my dependents are denied our fundamental rights , human
rights , denied proper medical care for ourselves , If anything untoward like
hit & run cases , murder attempts , unnatural deaths , etc happens to
me or to my dependents or
to my family members - In such case Chief Justice
of India together with the jurisdictional revenue &
police officials will be responsible for it ,in such case the government of
india is liable to pay Rs. TWO crore as compensation to survivors of my
family. if my whole family is eliminated by the criminal nexus ,then that
compensation money must be donated to Indian Army Welfare Fund. Afterwards ,
the money must be recovered by GOI as land arrears from the salary , pension ,
property , etc of guilty police officials , guilty Judges , guilty public servants
& guilty Constitutional fuctionaries.

date : 10.06.2013..………………………..Your's sincerely,

place : India…………………………............Nagaraja.M.R.

DAMAGESPAYMENT/FINAL SHOW-CAUSE NOTICE TO CHIEF JUSTICE OF
INDIA

In india democracy
is a farce , freedom a mirage. the most basic freedom RIGHT TO INFORMATION
& EXPRESSION , is not honoured by the government,as the information
opens up the crimes of V.V.I.Ps &
leads to their ill-gotten wealth. The public servants are least
bothered about the lives of people or justice to them. these type of fat
cats , parasites are a drain on the public exchequer . these
people want ,wish me to see dead , wish to see HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH closed .
so that, a voice against injustices is silenced forever , the crimes of V.V.I.Ps closed
, buried forever.

To my numerous appeals , HRW’s appeals to you ,you have not yet replied.
It clearly shows that you are least bothered about the lives of people or
justice to them .it proves that you are hell bent to protect the criminals
at any cost. you are just pressurising the police to enquire me ,to take
my statement, to repeatedly call me to police station all with a view to
silence me.all of you enjoy “legal immunity privileges” ,why don’t you
have given powers to the police / investigating officer to summon all of
you for enquiry ?or else why don’t all of you are not appearing before the
police voluntarily for enquiry ?at the least why don’t all of you are not
sending your statement about the case to the police either through legal
counsel or through post? you are aiding criminals ,by denying me
job oppurtunities in R.B.I CURRENCY NOTE PRESS mysore , city
civil court ,bangalore , distict court , mysore ,etc & by illegally
closing my newspaper.
there is a gross, total mismatch between your actions and your oath
of office. this amounts to public cheating & moral turpitude on
your part.

1.you are making contempt of the very august office you hold.
2.you are making contempt of the constitution of india.
3.you are making contempt of citizens of india.
4.you are sponsoring & aiding terorrism & organized crime.
5.you are violating the fundamental & human rights of the citizens
of india and of neighbouring countries.
6.you are violating & making contempt of the U.N HUMAN RIGHTS
CHARTER to which india is a signatory.
7.you are obstructing me from performing my fundamental duties as
a citizen of india.

8. As a result of your
gross negligence of constitutional duties you have caused me damages / losses
to thetune ofRUPEESTWOCRORE ONLY.

you are hereby called upon toPaydamagesto me and SHOW-CAUSE
within 30 days , why you cann’t be legally prosecuted for the above
mentioned crimes .

If i
am repeatedly called to police station or else where for the sake of
investigations , the losses i do incurr as a result like loss of wages ,
transportation , job , etc must be borne by the government. prevoiusly the
police / IB personnel repeatedly called me the complainant (sufferer of
injustices) to police station for questioning , but never called the guilty
culprits even once to police station for questioning , as the culprits are high
& mighty . this type of one sided questioning must not be done by police or
investigating agencies . if anything untoward happens to me or to my family
members like loss of job , meeting with hit & run accidents , loss of lives
, etc , the jurisdictional police together with above mentioned accussed public
servants will be responsible for it. Even if criminal nexus levels fake charges
, police file fake cases against me or my dependents to
silence me , this complaint is & will be effective.

if anything untoward happens to me or my dependents , the government
of india is liable to pay Rs. TWOcrore as compensation to survivors of my family. if my whole family is
eliminated by the criminal nexus ,then that compensation money must be donated
to Indian Army Welfare Fund. afterwards , the money must be recovered by GOI as
land arrears from the salary , pension , property , etc of guilty judges
, police officials , public servants & Constitutional fuctionaries.
Thanking you. Jai Hind , Vande Mataram.

The Supreme Court yesterday refused to extend
order passed by the predecessor bench, which granted interim protection to Jai
Prakash Associates Limited from paying 25 Crores.This civil appeal in the Supreme Court arises
from a writ petition that was filed by Himprivesh Environment Protection
Society before the High Court of Himachal Pradesh against setting up of cement
plant and thermal plant by Jai Prakash Associates Limited (JAL). The High Court
gave a judgment against JAL on 4th May, 2012 and imposed huge
damages on the company. In the judgment, the High Court observed that the
entire project of JAL was based on a “tissue of lies” and at every stage JAL
has either given wrong information or has tried to mislead the authority.It was found that JAL was guilty of making
false statements for obtaining environmental clearances for all its projects.
High Court quashed the environment clearance in respect of thermal plant. The
High Court observed that even environment clearance with regard to cement plant
is liable to be quashed but keeping in view livelihood of thousands of
villagers, the same was allowed.The Court further said, “After having
discussed the matter in detail above and finding JAL guilty of deceit, we must
make sure that neither JAL nor any other Company in the future behaves in such
a manner. We have, therefore, decided to impose damages on JAL.” Damages worth
Rs. 100 crores was imposed on JAL and that was supposed to be paid in four
instalment of Rs. 25 crores each; the first to be paid by 31st
August 2012; second by 31st March, 2013, third by 31st
March 2014 and the last instalment by 31st March 2015.JAL approached the Supreme Court against this
order through a special leave petition. A Bench of Justices A K Patnaik and H L
Gokhale on 26th November 2012, granted leave to appeal but a stay on
the High Court order was refused. On 20th March, 2013 a Bench comprising
of then Chief Justice of India, Justice Altamas Kabir gave extension of time
for payment of 25 crores (which was supposed to be paid on 31st
March, 2013) till 20th April, 2013. On 17th April, 2013 a
Bench presided by Justice Kabir allowed the ‘interim order’ dated 20th
March, 2013 to continue operation and the matter was listed for 8th
May, 2013. On 8th May, 2013 the Court in its Order mentioned, “The
stay granted shall continue till then”. However there was no ‘stay’ actually
granted by the Court in any of the proceedings till then, though the 8th
May order mentioned about a ‘stay’.On 10th July, 2013 a Bench
presided by Justice Kabir said, “Having heard learned counsel for the parties
and since it has not been possible for this Bench to take up the matter, let it
stand over till 23rd July, 2013, and be
placed before the Bench presided over by Hon’ble the Chief Justice.
Till then, the payment of the installment shall continue to be deferred.”Yesterday, senior counsels Abhishek Manu
Singhvi and V K Gupta sought for deferring payment of the installment. Justices
P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi after going through the order dated 26th
November, 2012 passed by Justices Justices A K Patnaik and H L Gokhale refusing
a stay, came down heavily and refused to defer payment.

A complaint has been filed against District
and Sessions judge of Porbandar for allegedly harassing his daughter-in-law for
dowry, police said here on Sunday. Darshana Dave, a native of Amreli, has filed
a complaint against her husband Kinnar, father-in-law and district judge Arvind
Dave, mother-in-law Pratibha and brother-in-law Prashant, the police added. Darshana married Kinnar two years ago. Her
complaint says that she was harassed from the beginning, and was even beaten up
by the husband and in-laws, who were demanding Rs 10 lakh as dowry. She has also alleged that she was thrown out
of the house a few months back, and her husband is now seeking divorce, the
police said. Amreli Superintendent of Police H R Muliyana
confirmed to have received the complaint against the judge and others. He said
that action will be taken after verifying the complaint. This is the second complaint related to dowry
harassment filed against a judge in the state in the recent past. Earlier, a woman had filed a complaint
against additional sessions judge of Jetpur after her daughter and the judge's
wife committed suicide.

Gurgaon
judge to also face dowry harassment charge

Gurgaon's Chief Judicial
Magistrate Ravneet Garg,
booked for the murder of his wife, will also face dowry harassment charge, police here said
Monday.Police have
issued notices to the CJM's
father K.K. Garg
and mother Rachna Garg,
who have also been named in the dowry harassment case.The CJM's father reached here Monday morning
from Haryana's Panchkula town and contacted police, who wanted to question him."We had
called CJM's parents...K.K. Garg
was questioned by special investigation team (SIT)," Gurgaon Police
Commissioner Alok Mittal
said.Mittal said
on the basis of written complaint filed by the parents of the CJM's wife Geetanjali, penal
sections of dowry harassment and extra-marital affair were included in the FIR
lodged against the CJM Saturday.Geetanjali, 24, bore three bullet wounds - on
her chin, chest and stomach - but no bullets were found in her body that was
recovered here Thursday. The CJM's licensed firearm was found near the body,
police said.Mittal said two bullets were seized from the
scene of crime and would be sent for ballistic examination Monday, a day after
ballistic experts examined the crime spot."The SIT Sunday questioned two women
relatives of Ravneet Garg for hours at his government allotted house here in
the Officers Colony," said Mittal. "We have asked CJM to produce supporting
evidences to prove his statement," he said.The CJM allegedly said that his driver and
domestic help may throw some light on his wife's death.Judge Garg's in-laws alleged that two cars
were provided to the accused on his and his family's demand. Rs.2 lakh were
also delivered to him at the time of the admission of his daughters in school
in May.Geetanjali's brother Pradeep Aggarwal
Saturday lodged a first information report against Garg and his parents,
accusing them of murder."Ravneet and Geetanjali got married in
November 2007. Everything was fine for a few years but the attitude of Ravneet
and his parents towards Geetanjali started changing after she delivered two
baby girls (now aged around four and a half and three years)," Aggarwal
said in his complaint.He demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) into his sister's murder.

Rs 100 crore offered for Gali Janardhan Reddy’s bail: Arrested judge

More skeletons are
tumbling out in the murky cash-for-bail scam involving mining baron and former
Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy as a lower court judge, arrested in the
case, disclosed to the ACB that Gali's men were ready to offer as much as a
staggering Rs 100 crore to secure bail for him. Earlier, the deal amount was
put at Rs 15 crore.

T Lakshminarasimha
Rao, the arrested judge, disclosed that Dasaradharami Reddy, a relative of
Gali, had made the Rs 100 crore offer, according to the confession statement
recorded by the ACB. Krishna Prasad, an auditor, who is known to him and
another relative M Venkateswara Rao approached Lakshminarasimha Rao in the
second week of April with a request to look for a `channel' to influence the
CBI judge for Gali's release on bail. "They were in touch with
Dasaradharami Reddy who was willing to pay even Rs 100 crore for securing the
bail," the confession statement of Rao said. Though the deal initially
came as a shock to the arrested judge, who at the time was registrar
(enquiries), high court, he was later attracted towards the deal, it said.

Lakshminarasimha Rao called the CBI court judge B Nagamaruti
Sarma to his residence on April 18 and tried to convince him on granting of
bail to Gali. Sarma did not agree for the deal and went away rejecting the
offer. He had, in fact, dismissed the bail plea. Then another person Raavi
Surya Prakash Babu, a real
estate dealer, who was taken to Bellary MLA Sriramulu by his associate
Kolli Lakshmaiah Chowdary for striking the deal, approached Rao again. Surya
Prakash had already met Sriramulu's nephew and Kampli MLA T H Suresh Babu who,
too, was trying to secure bail for Gali and advised him to wait as Nagamaruti
Sarma was not of 'their type'. But he requested Lakshminarasimha Rao to keep
the `channel' open as the deal was "too lucrative to be ignored".

Later, in a strange sequence of events, Nagamaruti Sarma was
shifted out of CBI court and a fresh bail plea was filed which came before
another special judge T Pattabhirama Rao. Lakshminarasimha Rao roped in
Pattabhi's batchmate D Prabhakar Rao, another district judge, who was with the
state election commission as its secretary (legal). He also tried to push the
deal but failed as Pattabhi told him that he would decide the matter on only
`merit'. It turned out later that Pattabhi chose a 'route' planned by his friend
Chalapati though the deal was only for Rs 5 crore. This was mainly because his
friend did not put any precondition that he should meet Gali Somasekhara Reddy,
brother of Gali Janardhana
Reddy, before giving bail as was done by Prabhakar Rao, who was also
arrested in the case. Prabhakar in his confession spoke of only Rs 15 core
implying that he too was unaware of the whopping Rs 100-crore deal. While the
ACB arrested Lakshminarasimha Rao on July 12, Pattabhi was arrested last month.

Interestingly, the
ACB sleuths seized some cheques bearing the names of Lakshminarasimha Rao's
family members with some complaint letters written by advocates against some AP
high court judges. The letters were addressed to the President of India.

‘Corrupt judges must face the music’

Corruption
exists in the Indian judiciary. A few judges are inappropriately influenced in
their decision making. Saying this is A P Shah, former chief justice of the
high courts of Madras and Delhi.

Shah
lived up to his reputation for calling a spade a spade on Saturday, when he
delivered a speech on judicial appointments and accountability at a function
organized by the Nani Palkhivala Foundation and the Govindh Swaminadhan Trust
at the Music Academy .

“Corruption
has spread its tentacles and does not seem to be limited to conventional forms
of bribery,” he said. Stating that judges guilty of misconduct should face
prosecution, he said judicial independence should not protect a judge from
investigation and censure for a valid charge.

The
country remembers Justice Shah for his orders in the Delhi high court
decriminalizing ‘unnatural sexual offences’ under Section 377 of IPC and ruling
that the office of the Chief Justice of India too was amenable to the RTI Act.
But, Chennai remembers the no-nonsense jurist for being instrumental in the
removal of giant hoardings in the city. Sitting with Justice K Chandru, he
quashed the political exemption granted to unauthorised buildings in the city,
and it was because of his orders that many public buildings today offer a
barrier-free environment to disabled people.

On
Thursday, Justice Shah spoke on judicial accountability, servility, corruption,
judicial independence and the need to usher in a transparent process to select
judges.

Lamenting
the ‘democratic deficit’ in the way judges are chosen on the basis of
undisclosed criteria and circumstances, Justice Shah said: “The present system
of judicial appointments in the constitutional courts exemplifies the
misalignment between the core values of judicial independence and
accountability.”

He
discussed the US and the UK model of appointing judges, but said a hybrid model
where a judicial appointment commission short-listing the names, which could be
rejected only on specific reasons, was most suitable for India.

Slamming
the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill 2010, he said involving MPs in
the procedure would undermine the judicial independence. “If implemented in the
present form, the Bill would mark the beginning of the end of the judiciary,”
he said.

With
whole hearted respects to the parliament & all constitutional bodies ,
hereby we are appealing to the honest few in public service , honest few in
parliament , honest few in judiciary & honest few in police , to legally
prosecute their corrupt colleagues , to legislate “ LOKPAL
BILL” with full powers to enforce accountability of all
public servants , MPs , MLAs , Police , etc to the citizens of india.
Contempt of Parliament & other constitutional bodies is being made by some
of the Corrupt MPs themselves. Therby these MPs are making contempt of Indian
Parliament , 105 crore Indian citizens , Constitution of India and
Obstructing the Indian Citizens from performing their FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES to
uphold constituion of india , it’s dignity. These Corrupt Public Servants are
doing more damges to India’s National Unity & Integrity than naxals
& terrorists . These Corrupt Public Servants are more deadlier &
greater threat to india than Pakistan & China. The honest few in
parliament & other constitutional bodies are either keeping mum or
not taking appropriate steps to intiate criminal legal prosecution against
their corrupt colleagues , this is aiding those criminals to do more crimes ,
to go unpunished , to manipulate legal system , to manipulate evidences /
records , to get acquitted by courts for lack of evidences , to influence police
to withdraw cases against them or to file B reports , etc. In these ways the
corrupt public servants will never be convicted , they will be either
stay as accussed or acquitted for lack of evidences or government withdraws
cases against them or police file B report.

Citizens
of india are supreme in democratic republic of india. parliament , MPs , MLAs
are creations of citizens and are subservient , subordinate to the citizens of
india. Creations cann’t be supreme than the creator.

Vohra
committee has officially acknowledged the criminalization of politics ,
parliament , legislatures. The politicians crave for power because , while in
power investigating / prosecuting agencies will be under their control /
influence and they can manipulate the legal process , WHITE WASHING all their
crimes. Just see , recently union home minister Mr.Chidambaram
influencing the delhi police for closing a cheating case against a
builder by forcing the police to file “B” report. Recent example read vijaya karnataka
kannada daily dated 14.04.2012 lokayukta police favoring ex-CM
Yediyurappa & Minister Somanna tried to close a case before lokayukta
court by filing B Report although enough evidences are there to prosecute Ex CM
& Minister . Politicians stoop low to such levels , to make money Ex
: irregularities in purchase of coffins meant for kargil martyrs ,
allotment of flats meant for war widows , war veterans at Mumbai.

If proper
accountability of public servants is legally enacted, independence , autonomy
of judiciary & police is legally enacted , then those in power cann’t
WHITE WASH their own crimes. That is the reason many political parties are
opposing “LOKPAL BILL” since decades under many pretexts.

Subject
to conditions , I do offer my services to the government of india & supreme
court of india , to legally apprehend CRIMINALS , CORRUPT PUBLIC
SERVANTS , ARE YOU READY to utilize our services ?

7) Are
the liberty & fundamental rights of the citizens guaranteed by the
constitution, above the privileges of the constitutional functionaries or equal
or below ?

8) Can
the Indian legislatures & parliament be equated to the House of commons in
England which is considered to be a superior court and court of records ?

9) Can
the division of powers, namely the legislature, the executive and the
Judiciary, be equated to the functioning of the House of commons and House of
Lords in England ?

10) Can a
citizen be said to have committed breach of privilege of the House or court and
causing contempt of the house or court by raising the issues of accountability
of constitutional functionaries ?

11) Can a
Legislature or Parliament enact a new law, to circumvent or to nullify the
Judicial orders with respect to wrongdoings by peoples representatives &
executive ? does not it amount to infringement of Judicial powers &
contempt of the court by the House.

12) Are
the FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES of a citizen more important than constitutional duties
of a constitutional functionary or equal in importance to it ?

13) Can a
constitutional functionary commit crimes, anti-national activities in the name
of constitutional duties, behind the legal veil of official’s secret act &
go unaccountable for his actions and go unpunished by his legal immunity
privileges ?

14) Are
the Legislators members of parliament, High court & Supreme court Judges
and other constitutional functionaries not willing to codify their privileges
for the reason that if codified their privileges would be curtailed and their
action would be subjected to legal scrutiny. ?

15) By
votes of citizens Legislators and parliamentarians get seats in the legislature
and Parliament out of tax payer’s money, they get their pay, perks & lead
5-Star luxurious lifestyles. Hence whether a vote of a citizen is above (More
valid) or a seat of legislator or parliamentarian is above or more valid in a
democracy ?

16)
Judges & Constitutional functionaries are indirectly appointed by voters /
tax payers. Out of tax payers money, they get their pay, perks & lead
5-star luxurious lifestyles. Hence, whether the vote of a citizen, fundamental
duties of a tax payer is above (more valid) or a seat of judge / constitutional
functionary is above (more
valid) in a democracy ?

17) If
there is a vacuum in the Legislature or parliament, who is to fill up that
vacuum till such time that the legislature or parliament acts provide a
solution by performing its role by enacting proper legislation to cover the
field (vacuum) ?

18) While
it is an unhealthy practice for a Judge to claim to be a Judge in his own
cause, is it not worse for the members of the legislature and parliament to be
judges in their own cause ?

19) Are
the Technicalities of the case more important to a judge or Justice to a
citizen, protection of fundamental rights of citizen.?

21) Why
not the Judges admit various cases of Injustices affecting public, as the
Public Interest Litigation” ? In some cases, the Public or the person
representing them is unable to afford the high cost of the case. Why not free
legal aid is given ?.

22) What
is the criteria for admitting a P.I.L. & giving free legal aid ?

23) Communication
– free flow of information is the lifeline of a democracy. Why the
constitutional functionaries are not honouring the Right to Information of
Citizens ?

Stage set for arrest of suspended Andhra CBI judge

The stage was Saturday set for the arrest of suspended Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) judge in a cash-for-bail scam which has sent shock waves
among the judiciary across the state.

After
receiving a nod from Andhra Pradesh High Court to register a case, the CBI may
arrest any time First Additional CBI Judge T. Pattabhirama Rao on charges of
taking bribe to grant bail to former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy
in an illegal mining case, sources here said.

CBI
sources said the investigative agency would register a first information report
before carrying out the arrests.

An Andhra
Pradesh cabinet minister, two Karnataka legislators, a retired judge, a rowdy
sheeter and the suspended judge’s son are also believed to have played a role
in striking the deal.

The exact
deal amount remained a mystery but it is believed to be anywhere between Rs.5
crore and Rs.15 crore.

The judge
allegedly demanded Rs.15 crore but the deal was finally struck for Rs.10 crore.
He allegedly received Rs.3 crore as advance before granting bail to Reddy May
11 in the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) case.

The CBI
Friday recovered part of the amount from bank lockers belonging to the judge’s
son.

The CBI,
which grew suspicious of the judge’s action, started investigations after a
go-ahead from high court Chief Justice Madan B. Lokur.

The
investigators tapped the judge’s phone and questioned him, his son and others.
The chief justice was informed of the preliminary investigations and, based on
this, he suspended the judge late Thursday.

Janardhana
Reddy’s family allegedly approached the judge through Yadagiri, a rowdy sheeter
of Nacharam area in Hyderabad, who then got in touch with a retired judge. A
state minister is also suspected to have helped in the deal.

Janardhana
Reddy’s brother and Karnataka legislator G. Somasekhara Reddy allegedly met the
middlemen in a hotel in Hyderabad to finally strike the deal. The accused’s
brother allegedly handed over the money, brought from Bellary town in
Karnataka.

Despite
Pattabhirama granting the bail, the mining baron remained in Bangalore jail,
where he is lodged in another illegal mining case.

On a
petition by the CBI, the high court later stayed the bail.

The
mining baron was arrested by the CBI from Bellary Sep 5 last year in a case of
illegal mining in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Judge suspension: CBI claims Rs.1.80 crore recovererd from
locker

The CBI
claims to have recovered nearly Rs. 1.80 crore here from a bank
locker, the keys of which were allegedly in possession of the son of Special
CBI court judge T. Pattabhiramaa Rao, who has been suspended on charges of
bribery and corruption by the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

The
agency had carried the search based on a source based input that a deal was
allegedly struck between Rao and former Karnataka Minister G. Janardhana Reddy
for granting bail to the latter in the illegal mining case, CBI sources said
today.

Before
proceeding with the search, the CBI officials took Chief Justice of Andhra
Pradesh High Court in confidence and apprised him about the input received by
them, they said.

After
getting a green signal from the Chief Justice, a CBI team got the locker opened
and recovered nearly Rs. 1.80 crore from it which the agency suspects
belonged to Reddy and was allegedly given as illegal gratification, they said.

The
sources claimed that the officials found the keys of the lockers to be in
possession of Judge’s son.

The
matter was again put before the Chief Justice who ordered suspension of Rao,
they said. Senior officials of the agency said there are three options – the
case is probed by local police, CBI files a new FIR or adding the charges in
the ongoing trial against Reddy.

They
however added that any further action could take place only after getting
permission from the High Court.

“First
Additional Special Judge for CBI cases Pattabhirama Rao has been placed under
suspension after the High Court considered the information it received against
the judge in ‘public interest’, the High Court Registrar said in a release.

Incidentally,
the judge had granted bail to former Karnataka Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy in
the OMC illegal mining case last month while he had rejected bail to IAS
officer Y. Srilakshmi, another accused in the OMC scam.

The need for a Judges Accountability Bill

By Vicky Nanjappa

Off late
there is a lot of talk regarding the necessity to have a Judges Accountability
Bill. Even when the Lokpal Bill was being debated the inclusion of judges into
this bill was strongly opposed by the government despite members of the civil
society urging the government to make such an inclusion.
Off late there have been reports galore regarding judges being offered sites or
houses under the discretionary quota of the Chief Minister. Recently there was
an expose at the Orissa High Court. Prior to this there were reports from
Karnataka and also another report which spoke about how the Narendra Modi
government had offered prime lands to judges of the High Court.
The big question is whether judges deserve such treatment from the state
government considering the fact that the government is the biggest litigant
before any court in the country? Is this an illegality or is it corruption?

Justice
Santhosh Hegde, former judge of the Supreme Court of India says it is illegal
to accept sites under the discretionary quota. Judges ought to know that while
accepting such sites they are succumbing to temptation. They have to examine
any such offer and find out properly whether it is in accordance with law or
not. It is very dangerous to accept such favours since in the days to come it
would hold against themselves.

Speaking
of a judges accountability bill, well there is one but it has not come out as
yet. This has been loitering around for some years now and it is time that
something is done about it. In fact while we were discussing the Lokpal bill
this was one of the primary contentions during the debate. Either the
government had to include it into the Lokpal Bill or make functional the judges
accountability bill. However there was a lot of misunderstanding regarding
this. All I said was it was not right to leave out the judges when we are
fighting corruption. They should include this portion into the Lokpal bill.
However once the Judges Accountability Bill is made functional then it could be
deleted out of the Lokpal bill. There was no need to keep this in abeyance
until that happened. When this issue is being argued and fought for the past 44
years then it is impertive for the government to include it.

Senior
Advocate in the Karnataka High Court, Navkesh Batra is of the view that taking
sites under the discretionary quota is nothing but corruption. First and
foremost Judges are not entitled for a site under this quota. This quota is
meant for poor people, outstanding people including judges. It cannot be given
as a bul allotment as it amounts to nothing but a sop. When the government is
the biggest litigant before any court in India then such a sop does not instill
confidence in the public and it would be better if both the government and the
judiciary abstains from such an act. Here I would like to quote the incident
involving the great Justice R A Jagirdhar of the Bombay High Court. In fact he
was the only judge who refused to apply for a site despite a request by the
then Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He even went one step further and at a
public function when the CM sought to shake his hand he publicly rebuked him by
saying, ” Mr CM your cases are pending before the high court. As a high court
judge I refuse to shake your hand.”

Land and
property are coveted assets. So why are chief ministers allowed to give these
away as favours? JEEMON JACOB tracks how Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M
Karunanidhi has been using his quotas

ILLUSTRATION: ANAND
NAOREM

IN
NOVEMBER, Chief Minister of Karnataka BS Yeddyurappa almost lost his job,
due to the uproar over preferential allotment of land and property to his sons
and close associates. He has since cancelled the allotments, asked his children
to move out of his official residence, and retained his seat through some deft
political manoeuvring and muscle-flexing. At the height of the campaign against
him, as political opponents paraded on apparent moral high ground, TEHELKA
published details of plots similarly allotted by previous Karnataka chief
ministers, both of the Congress and the JD(S), to relatives, servants, drivers,
maids and partymen (LAND SCAM 2.0, 4 December). The purpose was not to make
Yeddyurappa’s wrongdoings look less shocking, but to show that the problem was
endemic and needed rooting out. The right given to chief ministers to hand out
public land to a favoured few — relatives, bureaucrats, judges, police officers
and others — smacks of nepotism and arbitrary feudal power structures that
should have no place in a modern democracy. (Though there is no immediate proof
of this, some of these allotments could also be benamitransactions,
in which the ultimate ownership remains with the distributor of the largesse,
camouflaged by a stack of fake documents.)

This
power — euphemistically called “discretionary quota” — has even been used to
favour allegedly corrupt army officers like General Deepak Kapoor (AT EASE WITH
GREASE, TEHELKA, 20 November), who was given a large 500 sq yd plot in Haryana
by the Hooda government, which then faced the embarrassment of refusing him
permission to sell it off before five years had elapsed, as per rules. The plot
was given to him by the government as preferential allotment in recognition for
his ‘outstanding achievement’.

This
week, continuing its campaign against out-of-turn allotments of land and
property, TEHELKA has an exposé on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. The
Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) which commands a large land bank, has a
government discretionary quota (GDQ) under which 15 percent of all allotments
can be recommended by the CM. Eligibility for allotment under GDQ is as
follows: single/deserted women; widows; social workers; physically handicapped
persons; defence personnel; ex-servicemen; eminent persons in the field of
science, arts, literature, economics, public administration and sports; freedom
fighters; government servants with unblemished service records; employees of
PSUs, central government undertakings and nationalised banks; PF institutions;
journalists; university staff; and employees of local bodies and
municipalities.

While
some of these categories sound kosher, most of them raise a fundamental
question: why should the government have the power to give coveted land to
select employees and journalists over others? The only rationale could be
proximity — which is an untenable reason for being the beneficiary of political
favours, often worth several crores.

Setting
this aside, even within the legal ambit of the GDQ, TEHELKA’s investigation
shows that many of the allotments in Karunanidhi’s tenure have violated the
rule book. Many bureaucrats and their relatives have been given plots or flats
under the category of “social worker”. Some of these last did social work when
they were in college; many of them claim to be volunteers in such routine
activity as helping in blood donation or eye camps. Many have issued
certificates to themselves; some have acquired letters from the Lions and
Rotary Clubs with vague endorsements. In other violations, the rules say that no
one who has any other land or property in Tamil Nadu or any other capital city,
in either their own or spouse or minor children’s name, can apply for GDQ
allotments. TEHELKA found this is routinely violated.

Many of the allottees issued
certificates to themselves, while some got letters from Lions and Rotary
Clubs

The other
brazen violation lies in the claim of “unblemished” service records as a
qualification for allotment. When RTI activist V Gopalakrishnan sought a list
of such bureaucrats, Additional Secretary S Solomon Raj said, “As no
unblemished government servant certificates are issued, the question of
furnishing a list of names does not arise.” The additional secretary also
clarified that the home department didn’t have such a list. This is the phantom
category under which many public servants like Jaffar Sait, 1986 batch IPS
officer, now Inspector General of Police–Intelligence, got large allotments of
land in prime locations. Why them more than hundreds of others? That’s a
democratic question the chief minister will have to answer.

VIOLATIONS
The judge was allotted two adjoining plots on the same day (30 March 2008).
According to her Disclosure of Assets statement of 2009, the judge already
had a house in her name, and another plot in her husband, advocate K
Ganesan’s name. The house, in the Uthangarai area of Krishnagiri district,
was constructed in 1985 on a plot purchased in 1982. The plot of land is
located in Saidapet and was purchased in 1993. She however admits in her
declaration that she owns two plots, which she purchased from the TN
Housing Board in 2008. But this allocation was made under the General
Category. Since judges do not come under any of the quota categories, the
government’s way of allotting land to them differs from the rest. Judges are
informed about the availability of land. And when they apply for the same,
the government facilitates the allotment.

VIOLATIONS
Close relative of DMK supremo Karunanidhi and the Chairman of the School
Fee Determination Committee. Little wonder then he was also the recipient
of special favours while he was still a serving judge. At the time of the
allotment, the judge owned a 50 percent share in an ancestral house at
Thiruveezhimizhalai village. The judge had also sold a property he owned at
Pazhavatthankattali village near Kumbakonam. The land was purchased in 1991,
a house was constructed on it in 1992 and sold in 2009. He had also sold
the landed property of his wife in 2009.

VIOLATIONS
The advocate owned landed property in more than one location when she was
allotted the plot — one vacant house site in Karanai Puducheri village and
another in Katrampakkam village, in Kancheepuram district. Her husband,
Justice M Satyanarayanan of the Madras High Court, in his Disclosure of
Assets, stated that he owns a repurchased MIG flat constructed in 1969 at
Indra Nagar in Chennai. Ambika was allotted land under the GDQ.

VIOLATIONS
Allotted under ‘unblemished’ government servant category. On 6 June 2008,
the government transferred the ownership of the plot to his daughter
Jennifer Jaffar, then a student. Jennifer made two payments of Rs. 46.03
lakh and Rs.1.73 lakh towards cost of the plot. In February 2009, she paid
another Rs.60 lakh. After having paid Rs.1.07 crore, the ownership of plot was
transferred to her mother Parvin Jaffar. Interestingly, Parvin also made
the payment all over again. In October 2009, she paid Rs. 50.64 lakh and
then again in November 2009, another Rs. 25 lakh was deposited. A further
payment of Rs. 51.5 lakh in the same month was made. Income tax officials
feel the Sait family made the double payment to avoid an IT investigation
on Jennifer, who would not have been able to show any source of income. The
Tamil Nadu Housing Board then returned the original amount paid by
Jennifer. Now, Parvin in collaboration with Durga Sankar, son of an IAS
officer, has commissioned a builder to construct a multi-storey complex in
which 12 flats have already been built. Each flat is expected to fetch an
estimated 1 crore. So, by paying Rs. 1.26 crore in 2009, the IGP’s family
made a profit of more than Rs. 5.7 crore.

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under Social worker category. The tehsildar of Salem issued
her a certificate though he is not empowered to. The certificate says she
“is a well-known social worker involved in social welfare activities such
as president of Poolavari village panchayat, head of parent-teachers
association, participating in educational programmes of many schools”.

VIOLATIONS
She was allotted the flat under the Social Worker category. The supporting
document was a letter from a Rotary Club. The letter from PNK
Venkatachalapathy, president of the Rotary Club of Oddachatram, dated 31
March 2008, states that “she is known to me as a social worker who is
participating in social service activities of our Rotary Club at blood
donation camps, free health checkup camps and other welfare activities. She
has also been helping in providing several other basic amenities for the
people surrounding the slum area for the past several years. I wish her
every success to do more services to needy people in and around the area”.

VIOLATIONS
Though a member of a DMK trade union, he was allotted land under the Social
Worker category. Has three plots in his name and one in his spouse’s name.
He has not produced any supporting document about the social work he has
done.

VIOLATIONS
She was allotted the plot under the Social Worker category. An RTI
application revealed that she had not been engaged in any kind of social
work that would make her eligible for this category.

VIOLATIONS
Like her mother, the 20-year-old was given a certificate of social work and
domicile by the tehsildar of Salem, stating that she “is a wellknown social
worker who is involved in many social welfare activities, such as national
social service, participating in eye camp, blood donation and giving
education to poor students”. The certificate was issued on 27 February
2008, the same day her mother got one. Both got adjoining flats.

VIOLATIONS
Allotted plot under the Social Worker category but there’s no evidence to
back it. Constructing a three-storey building involving a cost beyond the
family’s known sources of income. Her husband owns another property in his
name. Her plot is adjacent to the plots of IGP-Intelligence Jaffar Sait and
Durga Shankar, son of the CM’s secretary.

Naveenkumar
Son of P Muthuveeran, IAS, who was District Collector, Theni, and close to
the Chief Minister

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under the Social Worker category. He works in a software company
in Chennai and submitted a salary slip of Rs. 20,000 per month at the time
of allotment. Now, he is constructing a fourstorey structure on the plot.

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under the Social Worker category. Certificate issued relates
to 1983, when he was a student. The college principal says he actively
participated in “many social activities conducted by us. He continues to
evince interest in social service activities”. Curiously, the EMI of Rs.
74,000 is almost double his monthly salary.

VIOLATIONS
He is a businessman, but allotted the plot under the Social Worker
category. He also submitted an affidavit that the plot would be used for
residential purposes. But he violated the conditions and developed the
property for commercial purposes.

The
Others

M
Ilamukil
IT Manager, DMK HQ, Chennai

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under the Social Worker category on a certificate issued by
the Lions Club. The certificate states that he “is participating in social
service activities of Lions Club at blood donation camp, free health camps
for the past several years”.

Ilanthendral
Ilamukil’s sister

VIOLATIONS
Allotted HIG flat under the Social Worker category on the basis of a
certificate issued by a panchayat, which is not valid.

N
Kannabiran
Junior attendant at the Supreme Court

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under the Social Worker category. Kannabiran, a Delhi
resident, was issued a salary certificate by the SC registrar for
purchasing land in Tamil Nadu. He was allotted on the recommendation of his
superior, who has close links with the DMK.

C
Ganeshan and C Vinothan
PSOs, CM’s Security

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flats under the ‘unblemished’ government servants category.
Documents reveal the Superintendent of Police, Security Branch, Chennai,
issued vague conduct certificates after the duo were allotted the flats
provisionally.

P
Meena
W/O P Pandian, PSO, CM’s Security

VIOLATIONS
Allotted flat under the Social Worker category. She produced a letter from
MS Velu of the Lions Club, who liberally issued certificates for sons and
daughters of bureaucrats to help them avail of prime plots allotted by the
TN Housing Board out of the government discretionary quota.

PHOTOS: THE
HINDU, JEEMON JACOB

Reactions
to Land Scam 3.0

D
Yashoda, Congress MLA, Kancheepuram

“I
have done a lot of work for Dalits throughout Tamil Nadu, especially in
Sriperumbudur and Chennai. I have helped them in getting pattas for their
land, recommending their names for loans from banks, distributing cycles to
Dalits on the birthdays of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.”

Jaffar
Sait, IPS, IG-Intelligence

“Government
agencies have already probed the matter. I am being governed by the conduct
rules, so I should not talk to you about the issue. It is advisable that
you seek a response from the Tamil Nadu government. I would like to add
that if any defamation or liability arises out of your article, necessary
legal action would be taken.”

P
Moorthy, Madurai MLA

“I
don’t know much about the certificate, I think I got the plot because I’m
an MLA. I have done a lot of work in uplifting the people in villages of my
constituency. That amounts to social work. I don’t need a social work
certificate from the Lions Club but my friends, partners and I took the
certificate anyway. “

‘GDQ is a
way of making you part of the syndicate’

BY JEEMON
JACOB

C Umashanker

PHOTO: JEEMON JACOB

A1990 batch
IAS officer, C Umashanker shot to fame during the AIADMK regime when
he exposed a scam in the construction of sheds in a cremation ground under the
Jawahar Rozgar Yojana when he was additional collector in Madurai. His brush
with AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa’s partymen resulted in his transfer out of
the district.

Later,
when the DMK came to power, he was appointed managing director of the state-run
Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu and put in charge of procuring colour
television sets for free distribution to the poor in the state, in keeping with
an election promise of the DMK. He was transferred with immediate effect after
he exposed corporate fraud committed by the joint venture promoter ELNET
Technologies Ltd.

Later, he
was posted as managing director of the state-run Arasu Cable TV Corporation. In
this capacity, he opposed the monopoly of Sumangali Corporation run by
Kalanidhi Maran. He also took steps to nationalise Sumangali Cable Vision. By
that time, Maran had a patch-up with the Karunanidhi family and Umashanker was
transferred with immediate effect.

Later,
the anti-corruption and vigilance department registered a case against him for
disproportionate assets. The government suspended him for claiming fake caste
certificate as a Dalit when he is a practising Christian.

Plots are allotted even
without any formal applications. There is no transparency at all

He lodged
a complaint with the National Backward Commission against his suspension and
got a favourable order from the High Court. At present, he is managing director
of Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation.

Umashanker
was allotted a plot (under government order 2D 325) on 3 April 2008 at
Thiruvanmiyur Extension when he was in charge of the free colour television for
the poor programme. For this, he would have had to pay 55.12 lakh. He wrote to
the chief minister that he could not afford to pay such a huge amount. Later,
his allotment was cancelled without stating any reason.

Umashanker
revealed he had an MIG flat in his name when the plot was allotted and he was
not aware about the rule of Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) that he can’t claim
a plot when he has another flat in his name.

It
certainly seems commendable that Umashanker turned down a chance to own a plot
in Thiruvanmiyur Extension, one of the poshest areas of the city. The plot is
just 300 metres from the beach.

Though
the entire colony has been parcelled out to those close to the ruling
establishment, it is the nouveau riche and the industrialists who dream of
owning a house in Thiruvanmiyur, where they can rub shoulders with former
judges, bureaucrats and political power brokers. If and when the allottees
decide to sell their plots, they can demand extremely high prices.

In a
frank chat, Umashanker talks about how the government discretionary quota has
been misused. Excerpts:

Why are
bureaucrats, judges, former judges and politicians given housing plots in posh
localities under government discretionary quota?
Who can refuse a good piece of land in Chennai city? It’s a way of rewarding
people for good work done. No inquiry has been conducted in this matter so far.
Discretionary quota is the prerogative of the government. After RTI came into
existence, several activists are taking up the matter in court. Basically,
there is no control mechanism or checks and balances. There is little
transparency while awarding the GDQ — the plots are allotted without formal
applications.

You were
also allotted a plot in 2008 under the ‘unblemished government servant’
category. What happened to the allotment?
Yes, I was allotted a plot in Thiruvanmiyur Extension. Initial payment for the
plot was Rs. 25 lakh. I never had that much money. So I requested the
government to reduce the price. But there was no response. I did not want a
house to compromise my integrity. So I never took possession. Later, in 2009,
the government ordered a vigilance inquiry against me and cancelled the
allotment. Frankly, I was not aware about the TNHB rules that bars a person
having a plot, a flat or a house from claiming another plot.

Do you
think the GDQ quota is a way of silencing people, buying them out?
Yes, it is a way of making you a part of the syndicate. Plots or flats are
given to those civil servants, judges or relatives of the bureaucrats or
politicians for complying with certain requirements. There is no procedure for
IAS or IPS officers to get a land or plot or flat in a transparent manner. So
everybody uses short cuts.

Minister’s DQ proves judges are more corrupt than civil
servant

NEW
DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: An investigation by Cobra post and IBN Network has
revealed how former and sitting judges of Orissa, police officers and
bureaucrats have received flats from the DiscretionaryQuota (DQ) of
ministers. As a matter of fact, successive Urban Development Ministers in the
Naveen Patnaik government have misused the discretionary housing
quota.

According
to the revelation, the judges have got the ‘minister quota’ flats out of turn
and at cheaper rates.

The IBN
Network accessed letters of judges written to the government asking for prime
property in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

Prime
properties were acquired in Cuttack at concession rates, bypassing the Cuttack
Development Authority. In fact, Sectors 10, 11 and 13 of Cuttack’s Abhinav
Bidanasi project has practically become a judges’ residential colony.

Former
Chief Justice G B. Patnaik is a resident of flat 1B/22 in Sector 11 while
former Orissa High CourtJudge Radhakrishna Patra has flat 1B/23 in the
same sector, given out on lease.

Most of
the allotments took place between 2000 and 2007, under the BJP cadre
Urban and Housing Development Minister Sameer De who was State
Development Minister from 2000-2004 and then Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo who called
the shots from 2004 to 2007.

All that
the judges had to do was written to the Minister. The CNN-IBN has a letter
written by Justice Madan Mohan Das to the CDA Chairman and to Minister Kanak
Vardhan Singhdeo, asking for a B-Category Flat in Sector 10, saying he would
ensure a third party transfer of a C-Category Flat already owned by his
wife.Justice Das was allotted the flat in just six days.

When
asked why the discretionary quota was used to make the allotments,
Sameer Dey, former Orissa urban development minister, said, “The Orissa act
does not have any such rule. There is 5 per cent and 10 per cent allocation
in discretionary quota. Apart from that we don’t have any rule.”

Kanak
Vardhan Singh Deo, former Orissa urban development minister, said, “The rule is
that only those who apply for the project can be allotted land
via Discretionary Quota. So if any such person does not apply what
can we do?”

CNN-IBN
has also found that many of the judges who were allotted land through
the discretionary quota already own ancestral property in Cuttack.
Yet the ministers were allotted the land they asked for.

Former
Union law ministers are spearheading a campaign against sitting judges they
accuse of being corrupt. What is the higher judiciary doing to clear itself
of these grave charges?

Avinash
DuttNew Delhi

Under observation: The Supreme Court of
IndiaPhoto by K. Satheesh

Senior lawyers have complained to the CJI and
the President that Justice Bhalla illegally amassed properties

The
campaign by some senior lawyers and former law ministers who have questioned
the integrity of sitting high court judges is set to ratchet up the growing
confrontation between the legislative and the judicial arms of the
government. Former Union law ministers Shanti Bhushan and Ram Jethmalani are
leading the battle against what they claim are corrupt practices in the
highest echelons of the judiciary.

Bhushan
has categorically condemned the rot he feels has set in the judicial system.
“The judiciary of this country is not merely unaccountable, but corrupt and
brazenly so,” he wrote in a letter to President APJ Abdul Kalam on December
17. Bhushan has demanded that the President initiate impeachment proceedings
against Justice Jagdish Bhalla of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahbad High
Court. On December 14, a Supreme Court (SC) collegium recommended that
Justice Bhalla be appointed the Chief Justice of the Kerela HC.

Bhushan
and Jethmalani, along with noted lawyers and former justices, including
Rajendra Sachar, Indira Jaisingh and Hardev Singh, have formed the Committee
on Judicial Accountability (COJA) and presented documents to the Chief Justice
of India (CJI), YK Sabharwal, to support their complaint against the sitting
judges. COJA complained to the CJI on July 11 that Justice Jagdish Bhalla had
amassed several illegal properties in the name of his wife and other close
relatives. Justice Vijender Jain, the former senior Judge in the Delhi High
Court, who was recently appointed the CJ of Punjab and Haryana HC, is also in
COJA’s line of fire.

By
questioning the integrity of Justices Bhalla and Jain, Bhushan has thrown
open the much larger question of judicial accountability. (See interview)
“Leave aside taking any action against corrupt judges like Justice Jagdish
Bhalla and Justice Vijender Jain, the CJI has been actually avoiding even
properly investigating charges against them,” says Bhushan. According to
documents produced by COJA on 21 July 2003, Renu Bhalla bought a 7,200 sq.
metre plot near the Noida-Greater Noida expressway. On 28 March 2005, Uday
Shankar, dsp, Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida’s official name) submitted a report
to the area dm in which he states that the sellers of the plot belong to the
“land mafia”. In an enquiry submitted to the dm on 26 June 2005, RK Singh,
the area sdm, also described the sellers as belonging to the “land mafia”.
According to the two reports, the plots constituted a portion of the gram
samaj (joint village property) land, illegally grabbed by the “land mafia”.
(All the documents relating to the transaction are in possession of Tehelka)

The
SDM’s report says that at the time of the transaction, the plot was worth Rs
7.20 crore in the open market, whereas Renu Bhalla paid Rs 5 lakh for it. The
two reports also state that the sellers of the plot have been charged in
several criminal cases, and had sold plots to several influential people to
curry favour with them. Renu Bhalla is the wife of Justice Jagdish Bhalla.

Bhushan
has also drawn attention to the July 2005 draw of lots for allotment of plots
in Sector 44 in Greater Noida. When the computerised draw threw up several
influential names, a few people approached the Allahabad HC alleging
foulplay. In October 2005, the HC decided that the case warranted a fresh
draw of lots and ordered a cbi inquiry into the scam. Among those who had
been allotted plots in the scrapped list were Aarohi Bhalla and Sheeba Sabharwal.
Aarohi Bhalla, who is the son of Justice Bhalla, was allotted plot number
f-52, while Sheeba Sabharwal, daughter-in-law of the CJI YK Sabharwal was
allotted plot number f-78. In November 2005, the Supreme Court stayed the
Allahabad HC judgement, putting the cbi enquiry and the HC’s order to hold a
fresh draw of lots on hold.

Admissible in court? Documents furnished
by COJA against the justices

Members
of COJA have offered to discuss the matter in person with the CJI but they
say that they are still waiting to hear from him. Five months after their
initial request, they sent another application to the CJI in November. This
time they sought his permission to register an FIR against Justice Bhalla,
claiming that their initial evidence was enough to register an offence
against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Justice
Jain, who took oath as the new CJ of Punjab and Haryana HC in November, had
to endure many delays before he could be appointed to the post. The CJI had
to make three efforts to promote Justice Jain. A collegium headed by the
Chief Justice of India first recommended Justice Jain’s name for the post in
July. However, President APJ Abdul Kalam returned the file, causing a minor
embarrassment to the CJI and the Union government. When the collegium
reiterated its recommendation through the government in November, the
President had to sign the file.

Third time lucky: Chief Justice Vijender
Jain

When a collegium headed by the CJI recommended
Justice Jain’s name, the President returned the file

Earlier
in May, a proposal by the CJI to make Justice Jain CJ of the Maharsahtra HC
was stonewalled by a judge in the three-member collegium who questioned
Justice Jain’s integrity. The member on the panel cited a complaint made to
former CJI RC Lahoti against Justice Jain in January 2005. The CJI revived
the proposal a month later, but again a judge on the collegium opposed his
appointment. Finally, a fortnight later, in July 2006, the CJI made his third
attempt to promote Jain, this time to the Punjab and Haryana HC.

This
time around, to address dissenting voices, the CJI also consulted other SC
judges who happened to be former chief justices of the Delhi High Court.
According to reliable sources, Justice Jain’s former seniors also questioned
his integrity. However, on the basis of a majority, the proposal to promote him
was forwarded to the Union government for the President’s assent.

A major
hurdle in promoting Justice Jain continued on page 8 continued from page 6
was a complaint by one Subhash Agrawal who approached then CJI RC Lahoti in
January 2005 with the complaint that Justice Jain had violated the code of
conduct for judges. Agrawal claimed that Justice Jain gave a judgement in
favour of someone with whom he had “family relations”. He produced a copy of
the invitation card of the litigant’s granddaughter’s wedding, held in April
2001. According to the card, the venue of the wedding was the official
residence of Justice Jain. (Tehelka has obtained a copy of the wedding card
from the Central Information Commission). In November 2004, Justice Jain,
hearing an appeal, decided a civil suit in favour of the person who had held
his granddaughter’s wedding at his official residence.

When
there was no response to his complaint in October 2005, Agrawal approached
the SC to find out the status of his complaint under the rti Act. He was told
that his complaint was in the relevant HC file. Not satisfied, Agrawal
approached the Central Information Commission. On the commission’s
insistence, the SC finally told Agrawal that his complaint had not actually
been forwarded to the HC, as the SC has “no administrative jurisdiction” over
high court judges. Therefore, the complaint was pending before the CJI, YK
Sabharwal. The commission asked the CJI to act on the application. The CJI
finally settled the complaint, saying he found no merit in it. When Agrawal
asked for reasons behind the decision, he drew a blank.

It’s
not just Bhushan who feels the need to bring about accountability and
transparency in the judiciary. Janata Dal (U) president Sharad Yadav says the
issue will be discussed when the Judicial Accountability Bill is tabled in
Parliament. “When the government tables the bill, all its aspects will be
discussed,” Yadav told Tehelka.

CJI YK
Sabharwal could not be reached for his comments. Despite conciliatory notes
from him there are all indications that the clamour surrounding judicial
misdemeanour and the demand for greater accountability will only increase in
the days to come.

Dec 30 , 2006

Related
Stories

•

My lords, there’s a case against youFormer
Union law ministers are spearheading a campaign against sitting judges
they accuse of being corrupt. What is the higher judiciary doing to clear
itself of these grave charges? Avinash Dutt reports

In public interest Prashant Bhushan has championed the
fight for judicial accountability
Photo: SHAILENDRA PANDEY

It’s
great judges have agreed to declare assets. But will it really help?
Politicians do it too.
This decision is very welcome, even if it’s only happened under public
pressure. It is proof of the power of public opinion. And even though
declaring assets is a relatively minor aspect of judicial
accountability, it will help. If a judge misdeclares his assets,
there’s a chance someone might know he has particular properties he
hasn’t declared, and may point it out. One could then examine if these
can be explained within their legal income.

The
debate around judicial accountability has got really hot. Are there
watershed events that triggered this?
Not in my own perception, but I think for the public there were two
watershed events – the Chief Justice Sabharwal case (where there was an
allegation that Chief Justice YS Sabharwal’s orders to demolish
commercial outlets in Delhi directly benefited his sons, who were
partners with some mall developers) and the Ghaziabad Provident Fund
scam. Both these cases got wide media attention. A 2006 Transparency
International report said the judiciary in India is the second most
corrupt institution after the police.

You’ve
been at the forefront of the judicial accountability campaign. Why?I
have been witness to judicial corruption in the courts for a very long
time. I know decisions are passed for extraneous considerations, but
it’s difficult to get hard evidence of this. There have been
highprofile impeachment attempts, for instance, on Justice Ramaswamy,
Justice Punchi and Justice Anand. Yet, they all went on to become chief
justices. In my view, out of the last 16 to 17 chief justices, half
have been corrupt. I can’t prove this, though we had evidence against
Punchi, Anand and Sabharwal on the basis of which we sought their
impeachment.

What
is the root cause of judicial corruption then, and what are your key
demands?
Our key demand is an institutional mechanism for entertaining
complaints and taking action against the judiciary. Nothing exists
today. Everyone realises impeachment is impractical. To move an
impeachment motion you need the signatures of 100 MPS, but you can’t
get them because many MPs have pending individual or party cases in
these judges’ courts. In the impeachment proceeding against Justice
Bhalla, the BJP declined to sign because LK Advani had been acquitted
by him in the Babri Masjid demolition case. Such political
considerations prevail all the time. An in-house procedure was set up
in 1999, post a chief justices’ conference in 1997, but that too is
activated only selectively. For example, the complaint against Justice
Bhalla was that he had purchased land worth Rs 4 crore at Rs 4 lakh — approximately
— from land mafia in Noida. This was based on a report from the DM and
SSP of Noida. This land mafia had several cases pending in courts
subordinate to Justice Bhalla. Another complaint was that in the
Reliance Power matter, though his son was the lawyer for Reliance
Power, Justice Bhalla constituted a special bench while he was the
presiding judge in Lucknow. He sat in the house of one the judges at
11pm at night to hear their case and pass an injunction in their
favour. We asked Chief Justice Sabharwal to initiate proceedings
against Bhalla, but he refused.

Similarly,
Justice Vijender Jain decided the case of a person whose granddaughter
had been married out of his own house. He was a close friend but he
still heard and decided the case in this person’s favour. The point is,
in these cases though very specific complaints were made to the then
Chief Justice of India (CJI), he didn’t do anything to activate the
in-house procedure. All these judges have gone on to become chief
justices. Bhalla is still chief justice of Rajasthan; Virendra Jain
became chief justice of Punjab and Haryana.

What’s
the answer?The first problem is that there is no independent
institution for entertaining complaints and taking action against
judges. There has to be a National Judicial Complaints Commission —
independent of the government and judiciary. It should have five
members and an investigating machinery under them. The second problem
lies in the Veeraswamy judgment, which ordered no criminal
investigation can be done against a judge without prior written
permission of the CJI. That’s what happened in Karnataka. There was a
complaint against several judges visiting a motel and misbehaving with
women. When the police officer came, the judges threatened him and said
no FIR could be filed against them because they were judges. This
happened in the Ghaziabad Provident Fund case as well. The
investigation is stumped because the CJI hasn’t given permission. We
have to get rid of this injunction.

The
third problem is the Contempt of Court Act. Today, even if you expose a
judge with evidence, you run the risk of contempt. Judges are even
seeking to insulate themselves from the RTI. We have to get rid of the
Contempt of Court Act – not the whole Act. Disobeying the orders of the
court is civil contempt – that should remain. Interfering with the
administration of justice is criminal contempt – that too should
remain. What needs to be deleted is the clause about scandalising or
lowering the dignity of the court, for which Arundhati Roy was sent to
jail. Finally, there is the problem of appointments. Earlier, judicial
appointments were made by the government, which was bad enough. Now, by
a sleight of hand, the Supreme Court has taken the power of
appointments to itself. Earlier there were political considerations;
now there are nepotistic ones.

Again,
what’s the answer to that?
We need an independent Judicial Appointments Commission, which is
independent and works full time, and follows some systems and
procedures. Eligibility lists should be prepared and comparative merits
debated and evaluated. You can’t just pick judges arbitrarily, and let
people know about it only after the deed is done.

There is still no independent body to process complaints and
action against judges

What
are the best practices and conventions elsewhere?
We should at least have Public Confirmation hearings like in the US. In
the Senate Judicial Committee, you have hearings where any public
citizen can give evidence about the background of a judge that has
bearing on their appointment. This is being fiercely resisted here.

Do
any counter arguments hold?
None that I can see. The judges say all this will compromise their
independence. Unfortunately, they are equating the independence of the
judiciary with independence from accountability. Independence of the
judiciary was meant to be independence from the political
establishment, not from all accountability.

Are
there other ways in which judicial corruption manifests itself?There
are so many. There is Justice Kapadia who decided on the Niyamgiri
mining lease case in Orissa. He said Vedanta can’t be given the lease
because it’s been blacklisted by the Norwegian government; but its
subsidiary company Sterlite can get the lease because it is a publicly
listed company. Justice Kapadia said it’s publicly listed because he
had shares in it and yet he passed an order in favour of Sterlite!
There is a law against judges hearing cases where there is a conflict
of interest, but they just bypass it and you can’t complain because that
would be contempt.

WHEN
SPECIAL CBI judge Rama Jain received an anonymous letter in January 2008,
telling her that the provident funds of Class 3 and Class 4 employees of the
Ghaziabad court were being siphoned off, she had no idea that she had
stumbled onto the biggest judicial scam in the history of independent India.

As she
was the designated vigilance officer at the Ghaziabad court, she first
conducted an inquiry on her own, which uncovered the involvement of at least
three judges and the Central Nazir in the embezzlement of funds. She reported
the matter to the Allahabad High Court, which, in turn, ordered a vigilance
inquiry. Holding that the report, prima facie, had merit,
the court directed her to file an FIR.

Central
Nazir Ashutosh Asthana was arrested on the basis of the FIR on April 10,
2008. His interrogation revealed that Asthana was not a solo player. He
claimed that he was first introduced to the scam by a district judge himself.
What followed was so shocking that even the Ghaziabad police was on the
backfoot. Asthana confessed that from the Rs 7 crore embezzled, he had given
cash and gifts such as airconditioners, refrigerators, expensive clothes,
jewellery and furniture to as many as 36 judges, including about 10 High
Court judges and one Supreme Court judge. In a sworn statement before a
magistrate, Asthana revealed that this fraud had run from 2001 to 2007 with
the active connivance of district judges. Every month, Asthana even paid
bribes to various judges, from Rs 25,000 to a whopping Rs 1.5 lakh.

When
these excerpts from Asthana’s confession became public, the public image of
the judiciary touched a new low. In perhaps the biggest moment of crisis for
the Indian judiciary, Asthana, the main accused, has in turn named judges
from the Ghaziabad District Court to the Allahabad High Court, right up to
the Supreme Court. This was not all.

These
revelations stunned the Ghaziabad police. Clearly out of their depth and
(justifiably) wary of taking on the powerful judiciary, they requested the
Ghaziabad court to hand over the probe to the CBI. In September 2008, the
Supreme Court transferred the case to the CBI, but with a rider: Investigate,
but give us a sealed report. The PF scam, as it had come to be known, gave
the judiciary a wonderful opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of the
people but the case remained shrouded in secrecy. Cynics then said that the
whole matter would be given a quiet burial. Eighteen months after the scam
became public and four CBI status reports later, the cynics appear to have
had the last laugh.

This
delay and secrecy in such a highprofile scam raises various uncomfortable
questions for the Indian Judiciary. Legal luminaries believe that this is
symptomatic of a larger malaise which ails the judiciary. Says jurist Ram
Jethmalani, “The reputation of a judge is more important than the actual fact
of his honesty. In fact, if a judge has a bad reputation, even if it is
undeserved, he should not be appointed because then nobody will have
confidence in his judgements,” adding, “When the judiciary expedites cases
concerning the executive branch or even most prominent cases, why is such
urgency not displayed here, when the matter is extremely serious. Why this
delay?”

For
six years, funds worth Rs 7 crore were embezzled and judges were allegedly
bribed

A VALID
QUESTION. Asthana named 36 judges (a list of which is with TEHELKA). Other
than the fact that a few have retired, virtually nothing is known about the
fate of the judges of the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court judge.
Whether or not the apex court is planning to initiate or has initiated,
criminal charges against any of the judges — sitting or retired — are
questions that only the Supreme Court can answer.

And the
apex court should answer, argues former Union law minister and senior
advocate Shanti Bhushan. “I don’t appreciate this sealed-cover business
except in very rare cases when making something public might be detrimental
to the public interest — mainly if there is an army secret. Whether it is the
judiciary or the executive, all officers are appointed on the behalf of the
people. It is on the people’s behalf that the judiciary exercises its powers.
How can you keep investigations in the PF scam secret? The people have every
right to know what is going on.”

VN
Khare, former Chief Justice of India, concurs. “These kind of things should
not be allowed to linger. This shakes the confidence of the people in the
judiciary. If there is an allegation or misconduct, it must be inquired into
immediately and strict action should be taken against the erring judges. Why
should the reputation of most judges suffer for no fault of theirs?”

When
the judiciary expedites cases concerning the executive branch or even most
prominent cases, why is such urgency not being displayed in this matter?

RAM
JETHMALANI, Jurist

The
biggest question which arises from this scam is the lack of will on the part
of the judiciary to rein in errant judges. Let alone the judges named by
Asthana, what about the fate of the three Ghaziabad District Judges named by
vigilance officer of the district court Special CBI Judge Rama Jain herself?
Legal luminaries say this hesitancy on the part of judges to act against
fellow judges involved in wrongdoing clearly illustrates the prevailing
mindset of the judiciary.

“I know
of a retired Chief Justice of India who is one of the most honest judges I
have ever seen. It’s difficult to imagine a more honest person. However, when
a responsible minister made complaints to him against a corrupt High Court
Judge, he did not grant permission for an investigation because he felt that
as the head of the judicial family, it was his job to protect judges, be they
corrupt or not,” says Shanti Bhushan. Ram Jethmalani chips in sarcastically,
“This is the reason why judges call each other ‘brother judge.’”

IT IS
not only cases like the PF scam which taints the image of the judiciary, but
also the extreme reluctance on the part of the judiciary to be open and
transparent. Reams and reams of paper have gone towards pious exhortations by
the judiciary asking the government to refrain from corruption and work in an
efficient manner. But sadly, no judge has held forth at length on the need
for the judiciary to refrain from corruption. Even attempts to exercise the
Right to Information with respect to the office of the CJI came a cropper as
the CJI’s office was always declared out of bounds. It took a historic
verdict by the Delhi High Court to declare that the office of the CJI was not
immune from accountability and outside the purview of the RTI Act. Senior
lawyers and retired chief justices feel that if the judiciary is not
transparent or accountable, it only means that they are trying to hide
something. Justice Khare feels, “Judges are more accountable than other
persons because they hold a very high post. The very existence of the
judiciary is based on the faith of the common man in it. If that faith is not
there, how can the judiciary function?”

No
judge holds forth at length on the need for the judiciary to refrain from
corruption

What
incenses them is the behaviour of the government with regard to the Judges’
Assets Declaration Bill which the government tried to introduce in 2009. The
opposition erupted in protest and forced the government to defer the bill.
Jethmalani terms the government’s approach to this bill as a “conspiracy of
corruption”. “The government is scared to take on the judiciary. It’s clear
that the executive wants to cosy up to the judiciary.” Agrees retired CJI V N
Khare, “Why should there be any hesitancy to declare assets at all on the
part of judiciary? The whole episode is beyond me.” In a recent development,
the Supreme Court has reiterated before the Delhi High Court that the CJI’s
office is outside the purview of the RTI Act.

Corruption
charges are swept under the carpet by the judiciary. But this has given a
shield of total immunity to the judges, who think they can get away with
anything

SHANTI
BHUSHAN, Former law minister

Another
assault on the public image of the judiciary is the Dinakaran episode.
Currently, judges are appointed to the Supreme Court by the Supreme Court
Collegium, a group of judges chaired by the Chief Justice of India. When
Chief Justice Dinakaran of the Karnataka High Court was elevated to the
Supreme Court, the state Bar and legal luminaries rose up in protest because
the Collegium appeared to have dismissed, or, at least, not have considered
the serious allegations of corruption against him. According to Senior
Advocate Soli Sorabjee, “The Dinakaran episode shows that the Collegium is not
working satisfactorily. You must have a national commission for judges which
should be made up of judges, eminent jurists and senior government officials.
This council should have the power to get independent information and
evaluate it.” Shanti Bhushan feels that as judges are extremely busy with
hearing cases, there should be a full-time commission whose sole function is
to pick judges for the High Court and the Supreme Court and feels that the
commission should also have its own bureau of investigation. They should not
be dependent on either the local police, who might be afraid to investigate
judges, or on an overburdened CBI.

But all
this is very hard to achieve. Jurists feel that the judges of the higher
courts have converted themselves into a union of sorts and are trying to
protect each other. “Their approach is to sweep every allegation under the
carpet. Don’t allow the public to know about it. Let the public believe that
our judiciary is very honest. But this has been counterproductive. It has given
a shield of total immunity to the judges and they think they can get away
with anything. This has led to an increase in corruption in the judiciary,”
states Shanti Bhushan. Time and again, opportunities have arisen for the
judiciary to reinvent itself in a new avatar. And time after time, it has
failed. Caesar’s wife, they say, should be above suspicion. Whatever the cost
it might take to ensure it.

Judicial
corruption is a bull few in India are willing to attach their names to. There
are whispers of this or that sitting judge making piles or cash; of sons,
daughters and other near and dear ones acting as “brokers” for cases, deals,
etc, but none of those allegations see the light of day.

Not
because the media is a willing accomplice but because of the sword of “contempt
of court” hanging over us.

For long,
truth was not, repeat not, a defence in the case of contempt.
Although that is now no longer the case, judicial corruption still isn’t
headline news like corruption in other spheres of Indian life. The case of
Justice P.D. Dinakaran is one of the rare exceptions and that too
only in sections of the media.

In his
application before the Supreme Court praying for his impleadment as respondent
No.3 in the case of the Amicus Curiae vs Prashant Bhushan, Bhushan senior
repeats his son’s charge that eight out of the last 16 CJs were corrupt, even
going so far as to deliver the names of the corrupt in a sealed cover.

“In
the applicant’s opinion, eight [of the last 16 chief justices] were definitely
corrupt, six were definitely honest and about the remaining two, a definite
opinion cannot be expressed whether they were honest or corrupt.”

Below is
the full text of Shanti Bhushan’s application, published in the public
interest.

***

To

The
Hon’ble Chief Justice of India &
His companion justices of the Supreme Court of India
The humble application of the Petitioners above named.

Most
respectfully showeth:

1. That
the applicant is filing the present application for his impleadment as
Respondent No. 3 in the aforementioned contempt petition as the applicant is
making a categorical statement in the present application that eight of the
last sixteen Chief Justices of India were definitely corrupt and also providing
the names of those eight definitely corrupt Chief Justices in a sealed cover as
an annexure along with the present application.

2. The
applicant is a practicing advocate who was enrolled on 8 July 1948. He has
appeared in each and every High Court in the country. He is well acquainted
with the manner in which the Indian judiciary has been functioning and how its
character has been changing over the years.

3. That
the applicant has been a part of the campaign for judicial accountability since
its inception in the year 1990.

4. That
there was a time when it was almost impossible even to think that a judge of a
High court or the Supreme Court could be corrupt. Things have changed
drastically during the last 2 or 3 decades during which corruption has been
growing in the Indian judiciary. So much so that even a sitting Chief Justice
of India had to openly admit that 20% of the judges could be corrupt. Very
recently in March 2010 a sitting Chief Justice of a high court openly made a
statement. The statement of the sitting chief justice was published by
the Times of India in its issue of 6th march 2010 with the
headlines, “In our judiciary, anybody can be bought, says Gujarat chief
justice”. A copy of the news paper report is being annexed hereto as
Annexure A.

5. That
the applicant believes that the reported statement may not be correctly
reflecting the perception of the Gujarat Chief Justice, since he should be
knowing as the applicant does that there are and have always been plenty of
totally honest judges, but they are also becoming the victim of this public
perception since no institution of governance in the country is taking any effective
steps about dealing with corruption in the judiciary.

6. That
India became a republic in 1950, when the people became sovereign. They got the
right to constitute their institutions, the executive, the legislature and the
judiciary, to serve them, who would be accountable to them.

7. That
before 1950, corruption was almost non existent in the High Courts. The federal
court had in 1949 got Justice Shiv Prasad Sinha removed from the
Allahabad High Court, merely on the finding that he had passed 2 judicial
orders on extra judicial considerations.

8. That
it however appears that thereafter the judiciary has adopted the policy of
sweeping all allegations of judicial corruption under the carpet in the belief
that such allegations might tarnish the image of the judiciary. It does not
realize that this policy has played a big role in increasing judicial
corruption.

9. That
the Constitution prescribed removal by impeachment as the only way of removing
judges who commit misconduct since it was believed at the time of the framing
of the Constitution that misconduct by judges of the higher judiciary would be
very rare. However those expectations have been belied as is apparent from the
surfacing of a series of judicial scandals in the recent past. The case of
Justice V. Ramaswami and subsequent attempts to impeach other judges
have shown that this is an impractical and difficult process to deal with
corrupt judges. The practical effect of this has been to instill a feeling of
impunity among judges who feel that they cannot be touched even if they
misconduct.

10. That
corruption by judges is a cognizable offence. The Code of Criminal Procedure
requires that whenever an FIR is filed with respect to a cognizable offence, it
is the statutory duty of the police to investigate the offence. The police has
to collect evidence against the accused and charge-sheet him in a competent
court. He would then be tried and punished by being sent to jail. The Supreme
Court has however by violating this statutory provision in the CrPC given a
direction in its Constitution bench judgement in theVeeraswamy case of
1991 that no FIR would be registered against any judge without the permission
of the Chief Justice of India. In not a single case has any such permission ever
been granted for the registration of an FIR against any judge after that
judgement.

11. That
the result of this direction has been that a total immunity has been given to
corrupt judges against their prosecution. No wonder that judicial corruption
has increased by leaps and bounds.

12. That
an honest judiciary enjoying public confidence is an imperative for the
functioning of a democracy, and it is the duty of every right thinking person
to strive to achieve this end.

13. That
unless the level of corruption in the judiciary is exposed and brought in the
public domain, the institutions of governance cannot be activated to take
effective measures to eliminate this evil.

14. That
it is the common perception that whenever such efforts are made by anyone, the
judiciary tries to target him by the use of the power of contempt. It is the
reputation of the judge which is his shield against any malicious and false
allegations against him. He doesn’t need the power of contempt to protect his
reputation and credibility.

15. That
the applicant strongly believes that a responsible citizen should be prepared
to undergo any amount of suffering in the pursuit of the noble cause of
fighting for a clean judiciary.

16. That
there are two statements of Respondent no. 1 (Prashant Bhushan) published
in Tehelka by Respondent no. 2 which are alleged to constitute
contempt of court. In the 1st statement, Respondent no. 1 has expressed that in
his view, out of the last 16 or 17 chief justices of India, half have been
corrupt.

17. The
applicant states that in his view too this statement is absolutely correct. At
the time of the publication of this report in Tehelka, the last 16
Chief Justices of India were the
following:
1. Justice Ranganath Mishra,
2. Justice K.N. Singh,
3. Justice M.H. Kania,
4. Justice L.M. Sharma,
5. Justice M.N. Venkatchalliah,
6. Justice A.M. Ahmadi,
7. Justice J.S. Verma,
8. Justice M.M. Punchhi,
9. Justice A.S. Anand,
10. Justice S.P. Bharucha,
11. Justice B.N. Kripal,
12. Justice G.B. Patnaik,
13. Justice Rajendra Babu,
14. Justice R. C. Lahoti,
15. Justice V.N. Khare,
16. Justice Y.K SabharwalOut of these, in the applicant’s opinion, eight
were definitely corrupt, six were definitely honest and about the remaining
two, a definite opinion cannot be expressed whether they were honest or
corrupt. The signed lists identifying these eight, six and two Chief Justices
of India are being enclosed in a sealed cover which is being annexed here to as
Annexure B.

18. That
in fact two former chief justices of India had personally told the applicant
while they were in office that their immediate predecessor and immediate
successor were corrupt judges. The names of these four Chief Justices of India
are included in the list of the 8 corrupt Chief Justices of India.

19. That
since the applicant is publicly stating that out of the last sixteen Chief
Justices of India, eight of them were definitely corrupt, the applicant also
needs to be added as a respondent to this contempt petition so that he is also
suitably punished for this contempt. The applicant would consider it a great
honour to spend time in jail for making an effort to get for the people of
India an honest and clean judiciary.

20. That
the applicant also submits that since the questions arising in this case
affects the judiciary as a whole, the petition needs to be decided by the
entire court and not merely by three judges handpicked by a Chief Justice.

PRAYERS

In view
of the above, it is most respectfully prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be
pleased to:

1. allow
the present application and implead the Applicant as a contemnor in the
aforementioned contempt petition as Respondent no. 3; and

2. pass
any other or further order/s as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper in
the facts and circumstances of the case.

WHEN
KG Balakrishnan was appointed Chief Justice of India in 2007, it was a
great moment for a man of humble origins. But VR Krishna Iyer, former judge of
the Supreme Court and national icon, now says, “I used to say that an era had
begun when KG Balakrishnan became the first Dalit Chief Justice. Now, I don’t
feel that way.”

Post
retirement, Balakrishnan became head of the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) in June last year. Ever since, a rising crescendo of allegations of
corruption have been heard, fuelled by the fact that his younger brother KG
Bhaskaran and his two daughters and sons-in-law all acquired vast properties
during his tenure as Chief Justice.

TEHELKA
has accessed documents that show that between 2007 and 2010, son-in-law
Puliyanaveettil Vasu Sreenijan purchased property worth Rs. 1.85 crore. The
current real estate value of these properties is in excess of Rs. 25 crore.

This is a
truly amazing story of wealth creation by a man who, while contesting elections
from Kerala’s reserved Njarackkal Assembly constituency as a Congress candidate
in 2006, had declared a bank balance of Rs. 25,000 apart from 24 g of gold.

Sreenijan
is married zto Balakrishnan’s elder daughter KB Sony, whom he met in college.
He traces his background to a humble and hard-working family: his father was a
factory worker in Premier Tyres, Kalamassery, and a Congress party worker. His
classmates remember him as an introvert who had a muted, almost latent,
ambition to become a powerful politician. From campus politics he moved to the
Youth Congress and took active part in its programmes and activities.

Sreenijan
became a practising lawyer in the Kerala High Court. When Balakrishnan started
his three-year tenure as Chief Justice, Sreenijan started making huge
investments in real estate and tourism. This sudden acquisition of wealth is
currently being probed by the vigilance department after a probe was ordered by
Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan.

TEHELKA
repeatedly tried to establish contact with Sreenijan for his version via SMS
and phone, but all calls went unanswered.

After his
marriage with Sony, Sreenijan’s political career also leapfrogged. He was
appointed state vice-president of the Youth Congress. Though Congress leaders
like MA Kuttappan (also a former minister) challenged Sreenijan’s rise, such
protests were short-lived. He lost the 2006 elections but his wife purchased a
flat and car parking space in Travancore Residency Towers for Rs. 6 lakh in
2007.

WITHIN
A month, Sony again purchased another flat in Mather Square. The cost of
the flat mentioned in the title deed is only Rs. 1.49 lakh, but the market
price of flats in the vicinity was about Rs. 66 lakh at that time.

Today,
Kerala Youth Congress leaders who were angry about Sreenijan’s political rise
are gunning for him. “We demand a CBI inquiry to find out how Sreenijan
acquired so much property and assets within the last three years,” said M Liju,
former Youth Congress state president. On 5 January, Sreenijan tendered his
resignation as Youth Congress vice-president.

Legal riches?Sreenijan’s
wealth has multiplied since 2007

In
November 2008, Sreenijan purchased a river-front property of 277.52 cents in
Kadukutti village in Thrissur district where he is now reportedly constructing
a resort. According to the title deed, he purchased the land from Mohammed
Iqbal Mather for Rs. 14 lakh. Villagers who prefer to remain anonymous say the
market price was Rs. 1 lakh per cent. If that is the case he has allegedly
shelled out Rs. 2.77 crore. And building the resort could put him back by more
than Rs. 10 crore.

In 2009,
Sreenijan purchased another property on Deshabhimani Road in Ernakulam for Rs.
30 lakh. Later, a property of 3.5 cents of land was purchased in his mother’s
name (Sreemathy Vasu) adjacent to his plot.

But it is
not only Sreenijan who became rich during Balakrishnan’s tenure as CJI. The
second son-in-law, advocate MJ Benny, too, became wealthier after his marriage
to Rani, Balakrishnan’s younger daughter.

Born to a
working-class Christian couple in Nettur, Ernakulam, Benny married Rani in
2006. Benny and Rani, both lawyers, fell in love in the court.

Benny’s
assets piled up in a manner similar to Sreenijan’s. Between 19 March 2008 and
26 March 2010, he purchased 98.5 cents of land through five title deeds for
Rs.81.5 lakh. This is prime land along the National Highway in Marad, Ernakulam
district. A cursory comparison of land rates during this period shows that the
property was undervalued.

When
Benny purchased the property it was around Rs. 4 lakh per cent and at current
rates would be Rs. 10 lakh per cent. Yet Benny showed his yearly income as Rs.
5 lakh and Rs. 5.5 lakh during the assessment years 2008-09 and 2009-10. Just
five land deals made Benny a millionaire in two years.

Rani also
embarked on an investment spree, purchasing 10.5 acres in Athirampuzha with her
relatives, including Abhilash T Chandran in 2007. Chandran is the son of
Thangappan, one of Balakrishnan’s six brothers.

Then
there’s KG Bhaskaran, younger brother of the former CJI, who is in the
spotlight for possessing property beyond his known sources of income. A senior
government pleader practising in the Kerala High Court, Bhaskaran reportedly
purchased 50 acres of land in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. In the light of allegations
of having illegally amassed property he was asked to go on leave from 4 January
by Kerala’s Advocate General CP Sudhakara Prasad. Bhaskaran, a former member of
the CPM, contested Assembly elections as a party candidate from Vaikom in 1977.

Bhaskaran
was a regular visitor to the Supreme Court during his elder brother’s tenure as
the CJI. He is also reportedly close to Justice Paul Daniel Dinakaran
(currently Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court and former Chief Justice of
Karnataka High Court) against whom serious allegations have been levelled of
land grab in Tamil Nadu.

No
wonder, the Kerala Vigilance Department is now probing all the assets acquired
by Balakrishnan’s family. Especially as the patriarch has not faded into the
sunset and is now heading a body tasked with bringing justice to those whose
human rights have been violated.

Public prosecutor caught on the wrong side of law

In a decision termed “rarest of rare” by a city court, a trial court judge
found a public prosector on the wrong side of the law.

Indicting
the prosecutor for deliberately botching up examination of witnesses in a case
of abduction for ransom, Additional Sessions Judge Pratap S Malik has passed
strictures against the state’s counsel and sent the copy of his order to the
prosecution branch for necessary action.

The judge
held that there was a deliberate attempt by the prosecutor to create situations
favourable for the three accused, found guilty of abducting one Sanjay Khan for
ransom in 2004. Khan had later committed suicide to escape further assault and
the court, finding ample evidence on record, had awarded life imprisonment to
the trio on Saturday.

The
prosecutor had refrained from putting important questions to police officials
and other witnesses that could help the prosecution nail the accused in a more
convincing manner, the court observed.

Prosecutor caught in ACB trap

Thane,
Apr 7 (PTI) An assistant Public Prosecutor attached to the Kalyan court was
trapped by Thane unit of Anti Corruption Bureau while allegedly accepting bribe
in the court premises this evening. ACB officials said that one Tuna Bharati, a
resident of Malad, had filed case of dowry harassment against husband and
in-laws of his late sister, Bhavana. Assistant Public Prosecutor, Chayya
Bhadkamkar allegedly demanded Rs 20,000 and accepted the first instalment of Rs
3,500, for arguing the case effectively, ACB said. She was trapped today while
taking the balance amount, it said.

JUDGES IN PROVIDENT FUND SCAM ?

NEW
DELHI: Faced with accusations having the potential to unhinge the traditional
public perception of the judiciary’s clean image, the SC on Monday decided to
examine the possible mode of probe into the Rs 23 crore illegal PF withdrawal
scam allegedly involving 23 judges, including some from the HCs and one from
the apex court. The difficult question on the mode of probe was posed by a
petitioner, who is the chairman of Advocates Welfare Trust and Bar Association
of Ghaziabad — the place where the scam took place — even as CJI K G
Balakrishnan had shown faith in the integrity of the judges by asking the UP
police, which is probing the scam, to send questionnaires to the judges, whose
names allegedly figured in the scam. Unwilling to have the judges interrogated
by the police at first go, SC had written to the UP police that if the response
of those judges to the questionnaire did not satisfy the probe team, then it could
send request for personal interrogation. The request for interrogation in
person would be considered on merit, the SC had told the police in a
communication. Appearing for the Bar, senior advocate Fali S Nariman flanked by
senior advocates Anil Divan and M N Krishnamani expressed concern over the
scandal and also pointed out the possible dent in the image of the judiciay if
an SHO was seen interrogating a judge. Bench comprising CJI Balakrishnan and
Justices P Sathasivam and J M Panchal appeared undecided about the constitution
of a committee as suggested by Nariman, it decided to seek the assistance of
solicitor general G E Vahanvati to chart out a possible course to deal with the
situation.

To keep
the proceedings off the media glare, the bench decided to take up the matter in
chamber on July 14, when Vahanvati and other senior advocates would make good
their assistance to look for a way out of the problematic situation. The
petition said one Ashutosh Asthana, the Central Nazir in the judgeship of Ghaziabad,
had allegedly confessed before a magistrate about his role in the PF scam and
had allegedly mentioned the names of 23 judges who were beneficiaries of the
ill-gotten money.

work
& also have played a role in silencing witnesses. I.O MORE RICHER

NOW?
PROMOTIONS? The presiding judge of the court has overlooked many

omissions
& commissions by the prosecution and in a hurry closed the

case ,
acquitting all the accussed. Reward for judge – promotion as

high
court judge. In this way, the police-prosecutor-judge were

together
ganged up against the victim from the beginning. Also, the

witnesses
were afraid of brute muscle power of rowdies & rowdies in

khaki
uniform.

Now, take
the gujarath riots case. In the first place riot took place

under the
active patronage of gujarath state government machinery.

Naturally
the police , prosecutors & judges in gujarath were against

the riot
victims & closed one case after another, acquitting the

guilty.
However the apex court got transferred riot cases out of

gujarath
, under public pressure. However, even the apex court failed

to
instill confidence , in the prime witness of best bakery case , the

apex
court failed to positively reassure the witness of her safety &

livlihood.
As a result , out of fear she became hostile- went on

changing
her statements.

In this
manner, numerous low profile cases involving commonman are

buried ,
witnesses silenced by the corrupt nexus of police-prosecutor-

judge.
They don’t even draw media attention as they are low profile.

Drastic
reforms of criminal justice system in india is needed.

Punishing
the hostile witness is not the solution. Accountability of

investigating
officers , police , prosecutors & judges is needed.how

come some
police officials , public prosecutors & judges are leading

luxurious
lifestyles, beyond the scope of their legal income?

Recently
in the media there was mention of a C.D of alleged

conversation
between samajvadi party M.P mr.amar singh & U.P chief

minister
, about influencing a high court judge & fixing a case. This

is the
way our judiciary functions in india. Rewards for corrupt

judges –
out of turn promotions, post retirement postings , postings

to kith
& kin , land allotments , etc.

Accountability
of judiciary & investigating agencies is the need of

the day.
Let us start with polygraph tests for I.O , POLICE , PUBLIC

PROSECUTOR
& JUDGE of jessica lal murder case.

Reproduced from The Times Of India August 16,
2007 page10

We do frame people, says NCB official

Sub-Inspector Tell HC How They Plant Drugs On Innocents

Abhinav Garg / TNN

New
Delhi:It’s been suspected by many, but confirmation of the police falsely
implicating people by planting drugs on them has now come from the policeman
himself who has been accused of planting drugs on two innocent people.

Sub-Inspector
Ranbir Singh of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) admitted at
the Delhi High Court that testing kits for checking banned drugs
wereoften defective. What’s more officers often replaced the recovered
substance with lethal drugs in order to implicate them. A shocked court has
summoned the NCB director to explain the charge.

Ranbir is
himself tainted of this grave abuse of authority. There is an FIR against him
for falsely implicating rwo persons under the harsh Narcotics Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances act. He claimed to have recovered 100gm heroin from
them which later turned out to be harmless paracetomal powder.

The
officer is now seeking to get the FIR quashed and in his defence has claimed
that he was not the only one who framed people, several other officers did the
same.

The Judge
has also summoned the Kamala Market Narcotics Cell in-charge from whose area
Singh allegedly picked up the two persons.

The
Director and the Cell in-charge will have to explain before the court as to how
these two innocents were booked and thrown into jail when two forensic reports
clearly stated that the substance in question was paracetomol.

The case
in which Singh is involved took place in March last year. Gyanender and Santosh
were arrested by him for alleged possesion of heroin. The substance was sent
for testing to two CFCL labs-one in Rohini and the other in Chandigarh- and
both labs reported back that the powder was’nt heroin but just parecetomal.

After
this came to light, the additional sessions judge hearing the case acquited the
two men and recommended that an FIR be lodged against Singh as the two
undertrials had to languish in jail because of the wanton abuse of authority.

The high court, while hearing a petition filed by Singh seeking quashing
of FIR against him found it intriguing that even when the investigating team is
equipped with “field testing kit” to test the contraband, they had mistaken
paracetomal powder for heroin. Upon which Singh revealed that kits were often
defective and that officers also changed the actual recovered substance
with banned contraband.

Now it is
a known fact that Bhopal Gas Leak Case Verdict was FIXED years before
, MATCH FIXED by then MP Government Chief Minister , Indian Prime
Minister and most shame fully Chief Justice of India.

Now The
Final Verdict is out in Bhopal Gas Tragedy . This kind of Injustice
can only happen in banana republics , where rich crooks are protected by
authorities & courts. SHAME SHAME to supreme court of India , supreme court
of USA & Government of USA , for practicing double standards in enforcement
of law & justice.

In India,
Favorable treatment is given by police & courts of law for rich crooks
where as poor innocents are harassed , tortured by the very same police &
judges . In india Some MP , MLAs even take money for asking questions
in parliament / legislature , Favourable laws are enacted to legalize crimes of
rich crooks for example : Illegal land encroachments by rich crooks. The
same MPs , MLAs are not aware about problems of poor public , they don’t even
open their mouth for asking questions on welfare of poor , let alone enact laws
for welfare of poor. No government law , no decisions of judges , no orders of
public servants are sacrosanct . Hereby , e-voice urges the supreme court
of india ,

1.
To legally prosecute the jurisdictional police who changed the charge
sheet , who let out Main criminalAnderson illegally without orders
from the court.

2.
To legally prosecute the SSP , DC of the district , Then Chief Minister of
Madhya Pradesh & Then Prime Minister of GOI , who fully aided the main
accussed , criminal Anderson to escape , to jump law.

3.
To legally prosecute Indian Public Servants , who were responsible for
withdrawing the case from US Courts of Justice.

4.
To legally prosecute Then Chief Justice of India Justice Ahmadi & His bench
colleagues , who diluted the case by changing the clause under which
Anderson & others were charged.

All the
while the same poor tax payer suffers without justice . In India more
than 50 Crore people are barely surviving on a single piece meal .Let the
corrupt public servants eat their 5-star meals by the side of the graves
of Bhopal Gas Victims. Atleast this will open the eyes of honest few
in public service – police , judiciary & parliament , it is a fond hope.
This is an appeal to those honest few in judiciary , police
& parliament to catch hold of their corrupt colleagues.

In the
wake of allegations that former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan’s
relatives have amassed property worth crores, a long-retired Supreme Court
judge on Monday demanded that the Centre initiate a probe against him.

With
reports appearing in the local media, former Supreme Court judge (retd) Justice
V R Krishna Iyer on Monday led calls for a thorough inquiry into the
allegations a day after a local TV news channel made the stunning expose.

“I myself
feel sad that I was a judge. I used to say that an era had begun when K G
Balakrishnan became the first Dalit chief justice. Now, I don’t feel that
way,’’ said the former Supreme Court judge.

He
pointed out that there were allegations against Balakrishnan’s daughter,
son-in-law and even mother-in-law. “A commission comprising chief justices
should probe the assets and bank balances of all of Balakrishnan’s relatives,’’
he said in Kochi.

A leading
jurist and former Supreme Court judge, Justice Iyer urged Parliament and the
Prime Minister to appoint a high-powered commission to inquire into the issue.
“The President must require politely Balakrishnan to resign,” Justice Iyer said
of Justice Balakrishnan who is the National Human Rights Commission Chairman.

As
reported, Justice Balakrishnan’s son-in-law P V Sreenijin, who is a member of
the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, had contested the 2006 Assembly election
from the Narakkal reserved constituency in Ernakulam district.

At that
time, while filing his nomination papers, Sreenijin had declared he possessed
no landed property and that his wife had only gold worth Rs 4.38 lakh and a
little over Rs 1 lakh in cash.

Three
years later, Sreenijin and his wife K B Sony, both lawyers, declared Rs 35 lakh
while filing their income tax returns. However, according to reports now, the
couple, who have not declared any sources of income other than their legal
profession, own property worth crores and are constructing a river-front resort
in Thrissur.

Several
of these properties are worth many times more than the amounts for which they
have been registered. The CPM’s youth wing, the DYFI, has claimed that whatever
information had come out was only the tip of the ice-berg.

“We have
more evidence to prove that the former CJI’s relatives have property in Dubai,
Bangalore and Tamil Nadu. The needle of suspicion naturally points to Justice
Balakrishnan himself,’’ said DYFI state president and MP M B Rajesh.

Sreenijin
has refused to answer questions from mediapersons saying he will react later.
Justice Balakrishnan was also recently embroiled in a controversy over a letter
written by a Madras High Court judge to him complaining against former Telecom
minister A Raja having tried to influence him over phone.

For the
record, Delhi-based journalist M Furquan in June this year petitioned
Vice-President Hamid Ansari for a CBI investigation against Balakrishnan and
his family “for finding out how much financial assets they have (allegedly)
accumulated since he took over as the CJI’’.

Ansari
had passed on the complaint to the Union Home Ministry which in turn handed it
over to the CBI. The complaint is reported to be with the CBI Kochi unit now.

YOU TOO, YOUR HONOUR?

The retired judge picked to probe the Karnataka land scams has a
‘tsunami of scandals’ in his past, reports IMRAN KHAN

SOME
THINGS just seem to get worse. Under pressure to quit for alleged
corruption in land allotment, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa finally
constituted a one-man commission to probe alleged land scams since 1995.
Yeddyurappa chose retired Karnataka High Court judge, Justice B Padmaraj. The
opposition, which was gunning for the chief minister, appeared satisfied and
stopped its campaign.

But,
Justice Padmaraj, it appears, has something in his past that ought to have
disqualified him from heading the probe. In 2007, a Joint Legislature Committee
(JLC) indicted Justice Padmaraj and 84 other HC and Supreme Court judges for
owning plots in the Karnataka State Judicial Department Employees House
Building Co-operative Society. According to the JLC, the society had created
‘an all India record for being the mother of all illegalities’ and
was formed by ‘unleashing a tsunami of scandals’.

Constituted
in June 2006, the JLC was headed by AT Ramaswamy and had 14 MLAs and six MLCs.
It was entrusted with the objective of investigating land encroachments in
Bengaluru. The AT Ramaswamy report found that the society had violated the
Karnataka Land Reforms Act by acquiring 36 acres of private agricultural land
in Bengaluru North Taluk without prior permission of the government.

A Joint Legislature Committee indicted Justice
Padmaraj and 84 other judges in a 2007 land scam

The Land
Reforms Act stipulates that any such acquired land shall be forfeited after a
summary inquiry by the assistant commissioner concerned. The JLC also found
that the residential layout did not seek approval from the Bangalore
Development Authority (BDA) — the planning authority under
the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act. Further, the report
notes that “the House Building Co-operative Society then submitted its layout
to the City Municipal Council, Yelahanka, which is not the planning authority
for the society land.

The JLC
also found that the layout violated norms for the allocation of civic amenities
and parks. Town planning norms mandate 25 percent for civic amenities, while
the original layout plan envisage only 5 percent. The JLC also questioned the
appropriateness of both sitting and retired judges being allotted sites. It
wrote: “The society has allotted sites to persons who are ineligible for
allotment of sites as judicial employees. Most noteworthy of such ineligible
persons are the HC judges, many of whom have been allotted sites.”

Shocked
at the extent of corruption perpetuated by the judiciary, the JLC noted: “The
society, which should have been a model to others, has become the leading
lawbreaker without fear or care of law, property or public interest.” This is a
strong indictment. So how did Yeddy pick Padmaraj?

Ex-CJI’s wealth under scanner

KOCHI:
There is no respite for Justice K G Balakrishnan, former CJI and present NHRC
Chairman, from controversies.

Close on
the heels of the A Raja episode, he has landed in trouble with allegations
erupting over his assets. A CBI inquiry into the amassment of wealth by him is
now on the cards. The CBI is awaiting a formal nod from the Registrar-General
of the Supreme Court, which is a legal requirement, to launch a probe into his
mysterious assets.

CBI
sources have confirmed the receipt of a complaint against Balakrishnan by a
Delhi-based journalist.

The
journalist, in his complaint filed before the Vice-President’s office, alleged
that the former CJI had amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of
income.

The Vice-
President’s office forwarded the complaint to the Union Home Ministry which in
turn forwarded it to the CBI.

“We have
received the complaint but no investigation has been launched. It will be
launched only after getting an official nod. The Supreme Court Registrar-General
is the competent authority to give sanction for the probe,” said sources in the
Kerala unit of the CBI.

But, it
is reliably learnt that a quick verification of assets of Justice
Balakrishnan’s daughter K B Sony and her husband P V Sreenijin indicated that
everything was not hunky-dory. Sreenijin, a KPCC member, has allegedly amassed
wealth to the tune of several crores in the past four years.

Sreenijin,
who had declared only assets worth Rs 25,000 in the affidavit filed in the 2006
Assembly polls (he was the Congress candidate from Njarackal,) now owns several
prime properties, including a riverside plot of 2.5 acres at Annamanada in
Thrissur.

He and
his wife Sony have also acquired a flat in the city, a plum office space near
the High Court and 25 cents of land at Elamakkara (in the suburbs of Kochi)
where the construction of a bungalow is in progress. Both Sreenijin and Sony
are practising advocates and don’t have any other known sources of income.

The state
unit of the DYFI has also called for a detailed inquiry into the allegations
and demanded the resignation of Justice Balakrishnan as NHRC chief.

The fresh
controversy will land Justice Balakrishnan in a precarious position as he has
already been under a cloud following Supreme Court Judge H L Gokhale’s
revelation regarding former Telecom Minister A Raja’s bid to influence a
Chennai High Court judge.

Five-star jails of India

In a raid
on Meerut Jail led by the DIG of Agra Jail to recover and seize cell phones and
other unauthorised and prohibited items, there was a fight between the jail
police and inmates of the high-security prison. It left six police officials
and four inmates injured.

The
raiding DIG said, “It could not have happened without the connivance of jail
officials. We had special instructions from the home department as Meerut Jail
is known for its lawlessness. But we were shocked when a thou-sand-strong mob
attacked us with sticks and stones. We were trapped and could only escape after
we charged towards the gate.”

The
prisoners snatched away all the mobile phones and contra-band recovered during
the check that was ordered at the instance of the State Government. The DIG has
accused the superintendent of Meerut Jail of “inciting the jail inmates to
attack us so that we could not find prohibited articles in the jail”.

On the
other hand, the jail superintendent has accused the DIG of demanding illegal
gratification. Some staff has been suspended. The other form of corruption
reported from the Meerut Jail included unauthorised sale of items at exorbitant
prices. Cigarettes were being sold for Rs 20 per stick. It cost Rs 500 for a
meal of choice. A local call could be made for Rs 20, an STD call cost Rs 100.
The Meerut Jail, built to house 700 inmates, now has 1,850 prisoners.

A former
Uttar Pradesh Minister, serving his sentence in Lucknow Jail for the murder of
his mistress Madhumita Shukla, freely hosted a wedding anniversary bash for a
co-accused in the murder case inside the jail premises. A sitting Minister when
asked replied, “No one is born a criminal and the Samajwadi Party believes in
transformation of criminals. You can’t stop anyone from celebrating an occasion
concerning him, his family or near and dear ones – within the premises of the
jail. As per my knowledge, there was no violation of the jail manual.”

In 2004,
three accused involved in the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant
Singh escaped scandalously from the Burail Jail in Chandigarh. Inspection
of the jail showed that the high profile prisoners were not only leading a
luxurious life, but they had also enclosed their cells in a way that their
activities inside could not be kept under vigil. Once the cell was turned into
a virtual fortress, the prisoners dug a tunnel to escape.

The
escape of terrorists involved in one of the most high-profile assassinations
could not have materialised simply through a nexus between corrupt jail
staffers and the prisoners. Vast sums of money as well as a pattern of internal
and external intimidation was necessary to create the conditions for the
eventual breakout and a significant network of support was essential to make
sure that the fugitives could evade the police system once they were out.

The
escape of Phoolan Devi’s killers from high security Tihar Jail and other
similar escapes of prisoners highlight the ineptitude and complicity of jail
staff. Tihar Jail is actually a complex of seven prisons, having a capacity of
4,000 prisoners. But actually there are more than 12,000 prisoners lodged
there. Regrettably, there is no fixed rule as to how many prisoners can be
lodged in a particular jail.

The
following is the existing jail system. There are two categories of jails –
district jails normally built for 400 prisoners each and central jails for 750
each. The jail staff members are not from the police and have their own
distinct hierarchy. There are different categories of under-trial prisoners
depending upon their education and social status. Courts have directed jails to
do away with the colonial, vintage classification of under-trial prisoners into
Class I, II and III, based on their socio-economic status, but Government
continues to stick to the old practice.

Selected
prisoners are used for the internal management of jails – to make up for
manpower shortage – as well as administrative work. The convict- supervisors
become a link between the prisoners and jail officials. They are given an
incentive for their work. Any wrong placement or selection can lead to the
escape of prisoners or other crimes going unchecked inside the jails.

The
Indira Gandhi Government had set up a high-powered panel in 1980 to propose
prison reforms. The apparent cause was Mrs Gandhi’s first-hand experience of
the conditions in Tihar where she was lodged in 1978. Mrs Gandhi appointed the
Justice AN Mulla Committee to review the national jail system even though jail
is a State Government subject.

The Mulla
Committee, 1983, recommended that the Constitution be amended to shift the
subject of prisons from the State List to the Concurrent List. That never happened.
The Centre at present has no say in the matter of jails except when they are
in Union Territories where, again, jails are far from being
models. The result is that jails continue to be governed by an outdated law
enacted by the British in 1894. The position is that the jail conditions vary
greatly from one State to another or even from prison to prison. There is no
national policy on prisons.

A
sensible recommendation of the Mulla Committee was to classify prisons into
special security, maximum, medium and minimum security prisons. Such a
classification can serve as a safeguard against jailbreaks and jail riots.

Much
before sting operations became a norm with the media, a hard-hitting report had
shown that in the Tihar Jail, officials mixed with notorious inmates like
Charles Sobraj who ran an extensive drug and liquor racket with impunity. This
led to a secret visit of the then Home Minister Giani Zail Singh to Tihar Jail.
He was stunned to see a drunken prisoner offering him a bottle of liquor. A mortified
Government finally suspended two jail officials.

Criminalisation
of politics has produced a strange phenomenon. Criminals have contested
elections from behind the bars and some of them have won. Given such
topsy-turvy world of politics, prison officials are often either unmindful of
the crimes being committed regularly inside the prisons, or sometimes they are
the ones to provide prisoners with mobile phones, drugs and food. These jail
staffers also organise kavi sammelans and mushairas and help prisoners run
extortion rackets and criminal gangs from inside the jails. A prison for some
prisoners has become a home away from home.

The next
issue is that of under-trials. According to the statistics compiled by the
Custodial Justice Cell of the National Human Rights Commission, 225,817 of
304,893 or 74.06 per cent of the total prison population in the country
comprises those awaiting trial. The total jail capacity in India is
232,412 prisoners, which makes the total prison population 31 per cent higher
than capacity, clearly emphasising the urgent need for a speedier justice
mechanism.

Only when
politicians go to jail do they talk about reforming the jail system. They
forget the issue the moment they are out. We must be clear as to what kind of
confinement or jail system we want. The time to make a beginning is now before
things get worse. There must be a Central law to be followed as a model by all
States.

No restrictions at Arthur Road jail, gangsters take leave
at will

Pune: A
highly confidential inquiry report by the Maharashtra prison department has
revealed that several key undertrials, including Mohammad Dossa, underworld
don-turned-politician Arun Gawli and DK Rao (the right-hand man of fugitive
gangster Chhota Rajan), among others, freely availed of “leave” out of the
Arthur Road jail in Mumbai over the last three years.

The jail
authorities neither reported the leave granted to these high-profile
undertrials to senior prison authorities, nor did they raise objections to the
leave applications in court.

A senior
prison officer told DNA that the inquiry report has been sent to the state home
department for action as it has exposed corrupt practices at the jail.

Ironically,
officials of the state prison department have none other than 26/11 accused Mohammed
Ajmal Amir aka Kasab to thank for the revelation of this nexus between the
prison authorities and the undertrials.

Sources
told DNA that when the undertrials, including Rao and Gawli, were shifted to
Taloja in Navi Mumbai, they started demanding similar treatment at the new jail
premises. They were shifted to Taloja so that maximum protection could be
provided to Kasab, who was to be lodged at the Arthur Road jail.

“The
undertrials continued to demand leave at Taloja as they had at Arthur Road,”
said an official, adding that the authorities at Taloja then reported the
matter to senior prison authorities in Pune and Mumbai.

Former
superintendent of Arthur Road jail Swati Sathe, who is currently posted in
Nashik, said she was unaware of any inquiry.

It was
during Sathe’s tenure that the “influential undertrials” availed of leave.
The inquiry revealed that leave extended from a few hours to even a couple of
days.
It also found that this practice had been going on at the jail for nearly three
years.

The authorities
did not deny leave to around 45 gangsters, most of whom are booked under the
stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999. One undertrial
gangster was found to have “gone on leave” on 35 occasions, the report said.

The
Maharashtra Prisons Manual has no provision to grant leave to undertrials, as
is allowed in the case of convicts lodged in jails. It is customary for an
undertrial to obtain permission from a court in order to avail leave.

The
inquiry revealed that none of the 45 undertrials sent their applications via
the jail officials. They were directly sent to court.

Significantly,
the authorities at Arthur Road jail failed to appeal against this.

The jail
authorities also failed to report the leave taken by the under-trials to the
state government, which generally alerts the police machinery to keep a close
watch on the activities of the suspects.

State
prisons chief, inspector-general of police Uddhav Kamble confirmed to DNA the
commissioning of the inquiry, but refused to elaborate. A senior official of
the prison department confirmed the developments as well.

Another
senior jail official explained that leave is only granted to an under-trial by
the court for emergency situations, like the demise or serious health condition
of the next-of-kin, besides attending the marriage of his/her children.

Leave can
also be availed for emergency medical treatment at the private hospitals, but
only under the supervision of the jail authorities. However the under-trials
went on leave to attend marriages and death of distant relatives, other minor
health issues of family members and even their companions.

Kamble
sought a detailed record from the deputy inspector general of police (prisons),
Mumbai, of all the leave awarded by the courts. The DIG, Mumbai conducted an
inquiry and found the involvement of Arthur Road Jail officials. Another
inquiry was commissioned to verify the findings of the DIG’s report.

In Pune,
22 inmates have been missing from the Yerawada Central Prison after they were
granted parole or furlough in the past 30 years.

Mumbai-based
gangster Vijay Thopte who was accused in the murder of union leader Datta
Samant and Arun Gawli gang member Eknath Arjun Mohite of Bhosari are among
those missing from the Yerawada jail. While Thopte has been missing after he
was granted parole a year ago, Mohite, who has several cases registered against
him with the Pune city and rural police units, has been missing for more than a
year now.

Might Not Have Recommended Parole For Manu: Pilot

Disapproving
the grant of parole to Jessica Lall murder convict Manu Sharma, who also
happens to be the son of an influential Haryana Congress leader, Congress
leader Sachin Pilot has said that he might not have recommended parole to the
lifer had he been the chief minister of Delhi.

“I
personally believe that perhaps more diligence should have been made before
issuing these orders. The fact that he has already gone back (to jail) does not
make a difference now,” Pilot said while participating in a TV programme.

Asked
whether it was a mistake for the Delhi government to have recommended parole
for Sharma, Pilot said, “Well I am not Delhi chief minister. From whatever I
know of the case, if I was the chief minister I would probably not have given
the parole”.

Sharma
was granted parole after chief minister Sheila Dikshit recommended it. Sharma,
who had applied for the parole on the ground of performing religious rites for
his grandmother (who died in 2008), attending to his ailing — later modified to
‘ageing’ — mother, and business matters, in Chandigarh.

Significantly,
the Delhi Police has gone on record to say that it had opposed the grant of
parole. It has been reported that the Delhi government has so far received 132
parole applications this year out of which as many as 88 are still pending, 33
were rejected and 11 applicants were granted parole.

Dikshit
had so far been under fire for justifying her decision, saying that it was
within the “legal purview” only from the opposition BJP and legal luminaries,
who had so far been protesting that it was a blatant case of partisanship. Not
only was Manu Sharma granted parole on flimsy grounds, and his parole extended
by another month on the recommendation by Dikshit, he clearly violated the
parole conditions as well.

Opposition
BJP points out that Manu Sharma’s father Venod Sharma, who is an influential
Congress leader in Haryana, played a major role in ensuring that the Congress
government in Haryana could be sworn. He is believed to have been instrumental
in getting the support of not only the seven independents but also the
defectors from Haryana Janhit Congress which now only has Kuldeep Bishnoi left
because as many as five of his MLAs joined Congress on Monday.

Sachin
Pilot is the first Congress leader who has gone on record to even mildly
express disagreement over the issue.

Nobody would have known

What is
even more significant is that the news of Jessica Lal murder convict — who is
serving a life sentence for having shot dead the Delhi model on April 29, 1999
at the Tamarind Court Bar — being out on parole came to public notice only
because he was yet again involved in a brawl in a nightclub.

Observers
point out that the brawl on the night of November 6 at F bar in New Delhi’s
Ashoka hotel that Manu Sharma and Sahil Dhingra got involved with Pranay Dadwal
and his female friend may even have gone unreported or been hushed up had Delhi
police commissioner’s own son not been involved in the case.

The
argument turned ugly and Pranay Dadwal informed his father, who happens to be
none other than Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal.

It was
because of this that a jeepload of cops landed up at the bar.

By then
Manu Sharma and his friends had left F bar and moved to the exclusive LAP bar
in the adjacent Samrat hotel, which is owned by Mumbai film actor and model
Arjun Rampal.

By the
time the police reached LAP, Manu had escaped. The police picked up Dhingra,
and it was only on going through the CCTV video coverage that it could be
confirmed that the person accompanying Dhingra was none other than the high
profile Manu Sharma who, most people assumed, should have been in jail.

It was
only then that it came to light that he had not only been granted parole, it
had even been extended, while he had been out there partying at various
nightclubs and bars, not only in Chandigarh, where he was supposed to be for
the period of his parole, but also in Delhi.

Observers
also point out how thee is nothing new in the subversion of justice in Manu
Sharma’s case, as the powers that be had almost ensured his acquittal in the
Jessica Lal murder case, which got re-opened because of an unprecedented
media and public campaign.

CAN JUDGEMENT BE MANIPULATED IN INDIAN COURTS OF JUSTICE ? – WHY NOT
PRISON SENTENCE FOR GUILTY SUPREME COURT ADVOCATES ?

New
Delhi, August 21 The Delhi High Court imposed a four-month ban on senior
advocate R K Anand and colleague I U Khan on Thursday for interfering with
judicial proceedings in the high-profile BMW hit-and- run case. A fine of Rs
2,000 was levied as well.

On May
30, 2007, television channel NDTV caught both lawyers in a “sting” operation,
conniving with key prosecution witness Suniel Kulkarni to get main
accused Sanjeev Nanda off the hook.

A High
Court Bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Manmohan Sarin found the two
guilty of criminal contempt.

“The
entire material leaves a bitter taste in the mouth about the goings-on in the
BMW case. There is no manner of doubt whatsoever that there was complicity
between Mr Khan and Mr Anand… There can be absolutely no doubt that Mr Khan and
Mr Anand were, somehow or the other, more than mixed up in the BMW case,”
observed the court, which had taken suo motu cognizance of the expose the day
after it was aired.

“Mr Anand
and Mr Khan are prohibited from appearing in this court (Delhi High Court) or
courts subordinate to it for four months from today. However, they are free to
discharge their professional duties in terms of consultation, advice,
conferences, opinions, etc,” said the Bench.

The court
desisted from commenting on the conduct of Kulkarni, saying it would not be
“proper” to do so. Though the verdict comes solely on basis of the CDs and
transcripts of the sting operation, the Bench said, “the unshakeable truth is
that Mr Anand is guilty of criminal contempt of court”. Contemplating a fit
punishment, the Bench wondered how many in the legal fraternity had had been
taken by surprise to find Anand indulging in such “sharp practices”. “Mr Anand
has held many prestigious elective positions in the legal fraternity, including
the Bar Council of Delhi. He has also been a Member of the Rajya Sabha,” noted
the Bench.

The court
said it knew Khan for his legal acumen and forensic skills — “perhaps the
reason why he was appointed Special Public Prosecutor in the BMW case”. High
expectations over Khan fell apart when his conduct “betrayed the trust that
prosecution reposed in him… what he did was perhaps beyond the realm of
contemplation of the prosecuting agency”.

Chastising
the two for their misconduct, the Bench said: “We are not dealing with a young
lawyer who, driven by ambition and desire… transgresses the limits or
unwittingly or unknowingly commits criminal contempt. We are dealing with
senior advocates, who are expected to conduct themselves as gentlemen and role models
for younger members of the Bar.”

The court
forwarded a recommendation that the two be “stripped of their designations as
senior advocates”. The High Court Registrar General will put up the court’s
recommendation before Chief Justice AP Shah within a month.

In
response to the verdict, the Delhi Bar Association president, advocate Rajiv
Khosla, said about 20,000 lawyers from district courts were going on strike on
August 22 in protest.

R K Anand

Began
legal career in Delhi’s Tis Hazari Court as a civil lawyer in 1967. Appointed
government counsel in 1976. In 2000, JMM nominated him to Rajya Sabha from
Jharkhand. Appointed AICC observer for Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh in
February 2003.

High-profile
cases:

* In
1980, represented the late Indira Gandhi in a property litigation filed by
Maneka Gandhi after Sanjay Gandhi’s death

*
Narasimha Rao in the JMM bribery and the St Kitts case

*
Chandraswami in the FERA violation case

* H K L
Bhagat in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

* Former
external affairs minister Natwar Singh’s son Jagat Singh in the murder/suicide
of his wife Natasha Singh

I U Khan

One of
the top five criminal lawyers in Capital. He was charging a fee of only Re 1 in
the BMW case. Began his career in late 1960s, and came into spotlight in 1980s.

*
Defended Sushil Sharma in the tandoor murder case, Subash Gupta in the Personal
Point triple murder, former Youth Congress President Romesh Sharma in several
cases and Tony Gill in Jessica Lall murdercase

When
prosecution & defence lawyer together team up along with corrupt police /
public servants and manipulate evidences / records , the court is helpless and
will acquit the accussed for lack of evidences eventhough the presiding judge
is of impeccable integrity , honesty , he is help less. Add to this , if the
presiding judge happens to be corrupt & teams up with the criminal nexus ,
the result is devastating , the rich criminal will get away & the innocent
will suffer punishment in some cases even death sentence. Who will bell these
few corrupt among the judiciary , bar , police & public service ? why
not prison sentence for two leading advocates on criminal charges of contempt
of court , destruction of evidences ? are they above law ? why favouritism by
court to the guilty in awarding punishment to guilty two advocates as they
happen to be political influential ? will the court let a common man so
leniently for the same charges ? In the past cases dealt by these corrupt duo
advocates , there are possibilities that the same tactics of manipulation of
evidences , prosecution is done to win the cases , to free the rich criminals ,
why not review of the cases dealt by these corrupt advocates ? The honest
few among judiciary , bar , police & public service must uphold our
constitution , rule of law & bring to book their corrupt colleagues.

CASH FOR JUDGEMENT

Chandigarh,
August 22: Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge Nirmal Yadav who has gone on
leave after her name is said to have figured in the statements of the main
accused in the case involving the delivery of cash at another High Court
Judge’s house, said today that she was a “victim of a vilification campaign.”
Speaking to The Indian Express at her Sector 24 residence here today, Justice
Yadav said that “some influential persons were trying to shift the focus on her
to save the real accused.” Justice Yadav denied that former Haryana Additional
Advocate General Sanjeev Bansal had talked to her on phone on August 13 when
Bansal’s clerk “mistakenly” delivered a bag containing Rs 15 lakh to the residence
of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, another sitting Judge of the High Court.

“Let any
agency prove that I talked to Sanjeev Bansal on phone either on that day or any
day in the past one month,” Justice Yadav said. “I am ready to face all
consequences if this allegation is found true. I have had no dealings with
Bansal. I have not received any money from Bansal or any of his associates. I
am sure I will get justice.” Justice Yadav said she had explained her position
to High Court Chief Justice T S Thakur and had “proceeded on leave.” She said
she would not hear any case until her name is cleared.

Sources
close to her said that during her meeting with Justice Thakur yesterday
evening, in which some other senior judges were also present, Justice Yadav
offered to proceed on leave to “maintain the highest traditions of Indian
judiciary.” Justice Thakur told The Indian Express that he had not asked
Justice Yadav to proceed on leave and that it was her own decision. It is
learnt that in her meeting with Justice Thakur, Yadav vehemently denied any
role in the entire role. While acknowledging that she and some other members of
her family had bought a plot of 11.1 bighas of land (see accompanying story) at
village Rihun Pargana near Kumharhatti in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh on
August 14, Yadav is learnt to have denied that the money for purchasing the
land came from Bansal or Ravinder Singh, the Delhi businessman, who is also
named in the case.

“Can’t a
judge buy legal property? Let the police or any other investigating agency
prove that the money for the deal was provided by Bansal or Singh,” she is
learnt to have told the Chief Justice. But she is learnt to have acknowledged,
in her meeting with the Chief Justcie, that she knew Ravinder Singh. She is
learnt to have said that she came to know him through some other judges.

Meanwhile,
highly placed sources in the High Court confirmed that Chief Justice Thakur is
awaiting the return of Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan from Brazil to
apprise him of the developments in the case. The Chief Justice is learnt to
have asked the administrative committee, comprising senior judges, to monitor
the case on a daily basis.

The Rs
15-lakh delivery: Story So Far

•August
13: Parkash Ram, an assistant to Haryana’s Additional Advocate General Sanjeev
Bansal, delivers a parcel containing Rs 15 lakh at the residence of Justice
Nirmaljit Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Justice Kaur calls the
police.

•Rajeev
Gupta, Bansal’s friend and a property dealer, tells the police that the money
reached there by mistake and it was meant for Nirmal Singh, another property
dealer. Chandigarh Police decline to hand over the cash. Bansal is questioned

•August
16: A case is registered against Bansal, Parkash Ram and Delhi- based hotelier
Ravinder Singh who allegedly organised the money

•Bansal
resigns as Addl AG and surrenders on August 19

•August
21: Rajeev Gupta, the property dealer who claimed the money was meant for
Nirmal Singh, is arrested. The Inspector General of Police sends a report to
the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. The report says that the
money was meant for another judge.

•August
22: Justice Nirmal Yadav proceeds on leave

Caught in controversy is Solan plot that judge, 16 others purchased

CHANDIGARH,
SOLAN, August 22: On August 14, according to revenue records, a plot measuring
11.1 bighas in Solan was purchased by Justice Nirmal Yadav and others for Rs 5,
52, 500. Details of the transaction, obtained by The Indian Express, show that
the land was purchased by her and 16 others from six persons, all residents of
village Rihun Pargana, near Kumharhatti in the Solan district of Himachal
Pradesh.

This
purchase is said to have figured in the meeting between Justice Yadav and the
High Court Chief Justice yesterday. Justice Yadav is said to have told the
Chief Justice: “Can’t a judge buy legal property? Let the police or any other
investigating agency prove that the money for the deal was provided by
(Sanjeev) Bansal or Ravinder Singh.” The purchasers and sellers obtained
permission from the Himachal Pradesh Government under Section 118 of the
Himachal Pradesh Tenancy Act. Solan Naib Tehsildar N S Chauhan has confirmed on
record that that the deal had been registered as per the details we have. The
land was sold by residents of village including Baldev; Narinder Kumar;
Surinder Kumar; Rajinder Kumar; Bimla Devi and Amar Singh. The sellers have
given a General Power of Attorney to Surinder Kumar (one of the partners among
the sellers), who executed a sale agreement in favour of the buyers.

Haryana
Addl Advocate General among booked Chandigarh, August 16: Three persons,
including Additional Advocate General of Haryana Sanjeev Bansal, were on
Saturday booked for an attempt to bribe a Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge.
The other two are Bansal’s munshi Parkash, who had carried Rs 15 lakh to the
residence of High Court judge Nirmaljit Kaur on Wednesday night, and Ravinder
Singh, a Delhi-based businessman who has a hotel in Karol Bagh. The munshi was
taken into custody while a police party has been despatched to Delhi to nab
Singh. Assistant Superintendent of Police Madhur Verma said the amount was
supposed to be handed over to some other public servant but was mistakenly
delivered at Kaur’s house. An FIR was lodged after Kaur complained to the
police. She also reported the matter to the Chief Justice. Police said Singh
had allegedly paid Bansal a huge amount to get settled a criminal case pending
in the High Court. The case is due to come up for hearing on Wednesday.

Earlier,
Singh had claimed the amount was pertaining to a property deal he had struck
with a resident of Panchkula. The money was supposed to be delivered to one
Nirmal Singh and was mistakenly delivered at the judge’s house. Verma, however,
said the preliminary investigation had ruled out the possibility of the amount
being related to any property deal. “Bansal failed to give a detailed account
of the cash. He produced some papers pertaining to some property in Panchkula
but that did not carry any weight. Our investigations caught him on the wrong
foot and, therefore, we booked him along with two others under the Prevention
of Corruption Act and criminal conspiracy,” he added. Bansal has been handling
several high-profile cases. He is one of the dozen-odd Additional Advocate
Generals appointed by the Haryana Government about two years ago.

Corrupt judge in Allahabad High Court by Rajeev

If the
Judges go corrupt, then it is GOD who will give one justice when one go to
heaven or hell. It is a Irony that I filed a complaint against a District and
Session Judge who later promoted to High Court of Allahabad. I wish the God
will serve HIS justice to Hon’ble Justice Umeshware Pandey, now enjoying at
High Court and selling (Mis)Justice at Rs 100000 per page!! Here I am
elaborating what had happened. In 1994, two people name Parashram Agarwal and
Mohan Lal Agarwal wanted to grab my father’s property and in March 1994 they
beat him and pulled his legs( just imagine the pain) making him handicapped for
life. Then in court those guys were merely sentenced for 6 months in Jail, but
they did not went for the jail for single day or hour and appealed to Sessions
Court and then the corrupt Judge Umeshwar Pandey took the bribe of Rs 200000 in
Criminal Revision number 13/2000 from Parashram Agarwal and Mohan Lal.

It is a
shame on Umeshwar Pandey that he cannot see a Handicapped man suffering for
last 9 years and even then not given the justice. Umeshwar Pandey has
taken this bribe via his Steno name some G. D. Gupta. It is the habit of
Parashram and MohanLal to record the conversation while giving bribes on hidden
audio recorder and the same cassette can be recovered if the authority try. It
is been 8 months since I have informed various authorities by registered
letters and phone calls from USA for no action till date.

I have
spoken to Mr Jagmohan Paliwal who was posted as Vigilance Officer for no action
till date and the recording attached is from Sept 2002. Similarly I have
spoken with Mr. K. S. Rakhra who was posted as Registrar General but no action
till date, and the recoding shown is from Sept 2002 too. Even CBI has forwarded
my letter to Registrar General, but no action is taken on that one too.

I have
emaild my plea to few High court Judges too for no response. I just hope GOD is
there who will give some justice. But the corrupt Judges should stop imitating
as GOD they are devil actually. The only solution can be people make a limit.
How much money a person needs. I often think about a story that a saint refused
to take the food as he already got the food for today and he do not want to
collect for tomorrow. But I don’t know why people want to generate money for 7
generations. If a careful analysis and investigation is done Umeshwar Pamdey
has Black money worth 3 generations. I guess instead of Lakhs and Carore now
corruption should be measured in generations.

Education
is important. People need to understand the meaning of freedom truly. IF I say
boldly India is still not free. People have mentality that they need to pay to
Government officials for work. This mentality has to be removed.

Thanks

Rajeev

HC suspends judge over corruption complaints

AHMEDABAD:
The Gujarat High Court has suspended a fast track court judge in Rajpipla after
receiving several complaints of corruption and favouritism against her.
Rajpipla fast track court Judge DL Desai was suspended on Thursday evening
after a primary inquiry held by the court’s vigilance department said that the
complaints against her had substance. Further inquiry against her will be
conducted by the department. Besides the complaint of favouritism in Rajpipla,
where she was presently posted, the Desai was also accused of similar charges
and issuing certificates without proper verification in Bharuch, where the she
was discharging her duty as a principal district judge, the High Court
authorities said.

The HC
administration seems to be seriously taking the issue of corruption prevailing
in Gujarat’s judiciary, as Desai’s is the fourth suspension in last three
months. Earlier in May, a judge in Surat’s court, AN Vinjhola was suspended
after similar complaints against him. The court administration also found him
in possession of property out of proportion considering his known sources of
income. Last month, two judges were suspended on charges of corruption. The
Ahmedabad city civil Judge NM Thakor and KV Kakkad were also suspended by the
HC after holding preliminary inquiry into complaints against them. All the four
suspended judges are now facing departmental inquiry.

FOREIGN TOURS OF INDIAN JUDGES AT TAXPAYER’S EXPENSE

New
Delhi: CNN-IBN’s exclusive report on some judges using official trips to
holiday, has sparked off the debate – should judges be above the purview of the
Right to Information (RTI) Act? RTI activists say there is every reason why the
RTI Act should apply to the higher judiciary as well. Questions are now being
asked in South Block, too, following the expose on Supreme Court judges.
Records obtained under the RTI shows judges have been converting work trips to
holidays, taking long detours and are accompanied by their wives while
traveling abroad.

At
present there are no travel guidelines for the judiciary and the Bar Council of
India is suggesting a course correction. “I think the judges must pay or should
pay the amount to the government,” Bar Council of India Chairman SNP Sinha said
in Patna on Wednesday.

Under the
RTI, CNN-IBN found that for Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan’s 11-day trip to
Pretoria, South Africa in August 2007 the route was – Delhi, Dubai, Johannesburg,
Nelspruit, Capetown, Johannesburg, Victoria Falls, where the judge finally
didn’t go and back to Delhi via Dubai.

Former
chief justice YK Sabharwal attended three conferences in 2005 to Edinburgh,
Washington and Paris. While the conferences lasted 11 days, Sabharwal was out
for 38 days with 21 days converted into a private visit. The travel plan
included a detour from Washington to Baltimore, Orlando and Atlanta, before
rejoining the conference route in Paris. The First Class air fare for
Sabharwal’s entire trip was paid by the government. Activists are now renewing
the debate on the RTI act applying to judges as well

RTI
activist Arvind Kejriwal said: “It only underscores why the RTI needs to be
applied to judges and judiciary.” Just like Caesar’s wife should be above
suspicion, RTI activists are demanding that SC judges too should be seen to be
accountable.

IB confirms Mysore sex scandal

The
Intelligence Bureau has provided the Centre with a detailed account of the
escapade involving three Karnataka High Court judges on November 3 in a resort
on the outskirts of Mysore, highly placed sources told The Times of India on
Friday.
According to a senior official, “Most of the information sought has not only
confirmed the veracity of the incident but the government has crosschecked it
with another police agency. Both the reports match.”
The incident was widely reported in the media. What has surprised the Centre is
the “dogged refusal” of the Karnataka police to confirm the incident. “Mysore
Police Commissioner C. Chandrasekhar first denied that the incident ever took
place. Only when a public notice was issued through the high court registrar
seeking information on the Mysore scandal, did the facts come out in the open.
Public protest helped a lot,” says the source.
What transpired at the resort, says the source, “cannot be expected from anyone
in civil society, leave alone persons sworn to upholding the law”. According to
him, “The IB report consists of unmentionable facts and also makes it amply
clear that the Mysore incident is not the first time such things have happened.
Can anyone expect upholders of the law to pick a fight with people who
complained to the police when caught in a compromising position?”
In a related development, Karnataka High Court Chief Justice N.K. Jain has
written to Chief Justice of India Justice G.B. Pattanaik asking that three
judges be transferred. Jain has proposed that Justice N.S. Veerabhadraiah be
transferred to the Patna High Court, Justice Chandrasekharaiah to Jammu &
Kashmir and Justice V. Gopala Gowda to the Gauhati High Court.
While Jain is understood not to have given any reasons, highly placed sources
say the proposal for transfers is linked to the Mysore incident.
However, the source says that now the government is worried about the
appropriate “remedial measures”. In such cases, transferring a judge to a
remote high court doesn’t always work. He says, “Bar associations and the
people of northeastern states were up in arms when some judges of the Punjab and
Haryana high courts were transferred there. We expect similar protests if the
CJI accepts Justice Jain’s proposal to transfer the three judges of the
Karnataka High Court.”
The Bar Council of India on Friday, while expressing its anguish at the
Karnataka incident, called for “follow-up action”.
“Unless prompt and appropriate action is taken, it will erode the faith of
public in the only institution considered to be the bastion of our fighting
faith in democracy,” it said in a statement. The BCI has “lamented” inaction in
this case by “the higher judiciary and the government”.
Read more: IB confirms Mysore sex scandal – The Times of Indiahttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/IB-confirms-Mysore-sex-scandal/articleshow/29801662.cms#ixzz1B7PtvFdU

Hyderabad/Warangal,
Aug. 25: The Andhra Pradesh High Court Chief Justice, Mr Nisar Ahmad Kakru, on
Wednesday suspended five subordinate judges for allegedly indulging in copying
during the LLM exams held at Kakatiya University in Warangal district on
Tuesday.

The Chief
Justice reviewed the situation after obtaining the preliminary report from the
university authorities and issued orders suspending them from the service. He
also asked the university to send a detailed report on the exam malpractice by
the judges.

Meanwhile,
the Warangal District Bar Association (WDBA) has demanded registration of cases
under the AP Public Examination (Prevention of Malpractices & Unfair Means)
Act, 1997, against the errant judges. “It was unbecoming of the judges to
indulge in mass copying,” said Mr Ch Sambasiva Raju, vice-president, WDBA. The
WDBA office bearers also demanded suspension of Mr Razak Uzama, II Sub-Judge,
Warangal and his wife Ms Prema Rajeshwara, secretary, district legal services
authority, Warangal, both of who appeared in the LLM exam. Reportedly, it was
Mr Razak who encouraged the mass copying. However, he and his wife were spared.
Meanwhile, Dr Talapalli Manohar, additional controller of examination, SDLCE,
clarified that the flying squad had actually debarred only three judges — Mr M.
Kistappa, Mr Vijayender Reddy and Mr Ajitsimha Rao. Sources said the other two
judges, Mr Hanumantha Rao and Mr Srinivasa Chary were caught based on visual
evidence.

Magistrate issues arrest warrant against Indian president after cash
bribe.

An Indian
magistrate who allegedly accepted a bribe to issue arrest warrants against
India’s president and senior legal figures has been trapped in a sting
operation by a journalist, a report said.

The
journalist videotaped magistrate Meghani Nagar, who practices in Ahmedabad,
commercial capital of Gujarat state, accepting a bribe of 40,000 rupees (851
dollars) to issue the arrest warrants, the Times of India newspaper said
Thursday.

Among
those cited in the warrants for criminal breach of trust and for cheating and
dishonesty are Indian President Abdul Kalam and Chief Justice V.N. Khare, a
senior judge and a well-known …

Indian president arrest warrant probe

India’s
Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into how an arrest warrant was
issued against the country’s president and its top judges.

A shocked
Chief Justice VN Khare asked India’s top police body, the Central Bureau of
Investigation, to report its findings in a week.

President
Abdul Kalam, two Supreme Court judges – including Chief Justice Khare himself –
and the president of India’s bar association were issued with the warrants
after a case of fraud was filed against them.

An Indian
television journalist has told the court he secretly filmed a magistrate
accepting 40,000 rupees ($883) to issue the warrants.

The
magistrate apparently had not realised who they were, newspaper reports said on
Thursday. He has now been suspended from his duties.

Court
request

Journalist
Vijay Shekhar has handed over to the court videotapes of the incident, which
took place in the state of Gujarat.

The court
has issued notices to the magistrate and the lawyers who filed the case, asking
them for their version of the events, the Press Trust of India reports.

“What is
happening in Gujarat? By giving 40,000 rupees you can get a judicial order,”
Chief Justice Khare is reported as saying.

“If this
is the state of affairs only God knows what will happen to the country,” he
added.

Mr
Shekhar said he carried out the sting operation to expose corruption in India’s
judiciary.

In 2001
India was hit by an arms scandal after a website secretly filmed senior
military and defence officials apparently accepting cash from journalists
posing as arms dealers.

Lokayukta: DC demanded sex from widow

In the
midst of a national outrage over former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore molesting a
teenager, the Karnataka Lokayukta on Saturday made a startling revelation that
the state government was shielding a top bureaucrat who had demanded sexual
favours from a young widow.

Lokayukta
Justice Santosh Hegde disclosed that the official concerned, who was the deputy
commissioner of one of the districts when he demanded sex from the widow in
return for discharging his duties as public servant, has since been promoted to
a senior position.

Justice
Hegde, in the course of an interaction with journalists at the Deccan Herald
office Saturday afternoon, said the unnamed widow had dared the deputy
commissioner and approached the Lokayukta’s office with a complaint against the
officer.

On
examination of the complaint, the Lokayukta had found sufficient grounds to
recommend to the state government the suspension and prosecution of the DC
concerned. The recommendation was subsequently considered by the concerned
department head as well as the chief secretary and both endorsed it.

But,
according to Justice Hegde, no action was initiated against the DC as the same
official who had endorsed the recommendation subsequently found no basis for
initiating departmental action against him. Instead, the official cleared the
DC’s name for promotion in the super-scale. Presently, the official holds a
senior position in the government.

The
widow, in her late 20s, had approached the DC with a representation to sort out
some problems. But she was shocked when the DC demanded sex.

Justice
Hegde did not identify the official in question or the complainant. Nor did he
offer to name the district where the official was serving as deputy
commissioner. But the incident has happened sometime in the course of last
three years as Justice Hegde took over as the Lokayukta in mid-2006.

3-year jail term for ‘dirty’ judge

Family
court judge Ramrao Gangaram Bhise attempted to get sexual favours from a
housewife in 1997

Family
court judge Ramrao Gangaram Bhise’s attempts to extract sexual favours, in
addition to a bribe, from a housewife, Alka Gaikwad — who had sought an
increase in her monthly maintenance allowance from her estranged husband, in
1997 — proved costly to him. Pronouncing him guilty on both counts, the special
court hearing anti-corruption bureau (ACB) matters sentenced him to three years
rigorous imprisonment and a collective fine of Rs55, 000, on Monday.

According
to the FIR in the case registered against Bhise by the ACB, Suryakant Gaikwad had
filed for divorce from his wife, Alka, before the Bandra family court. Alka, a
housewife, in turn, filed a petition seeking mutual cohabitation with her
husband. The then family court judge, Meera Khadakkar, directed the husband to
pay her an interim maintenance allowance of Rs750 per month.

Subsequently,
in January 1997, Alka filed another application before the same family court
(now presided over by Bhise) seeking to increase the monthly maintenance amount
to Rs3,500. “On October 27, 1997, Bhise issued an interim order, increasing the
maintenance allowance to Rs2,000 to be paid by Suryakan to his estranged wife
till the disposal of the case. Immediately after issuing the order, Bhise asked
Alka to meet him and gave her his residential telephone number, asking her to
call him when the court hours ended. He told her that he would ask her husband
to pay her a lump sum of Rs2 lakh in addition to the monthly maintenance,
provided she called him up,” the FIR states.

When she
called up the judge at 7 pm the same day, Bhise told her that she would have to
pay him a sum of Rs2,000 in addition to granting his sexual favours if she
wanted an order in her favour. He also directed her to meet him at the Haji Ali
bus stop with the bribe amount the following evening.

“Alka
approached the ACB, which sought permission from the Chief Justice of the
Bombay High Court before laying a trap on the first class judicial magistrate
(Bhise). The HC while granting the permission designated a court official to
bear witness to the events leading to the trap. Alka, under video camera
surveillance of ACB sleuths, along with the court official and other women
witnesses met Bhise at 8.30 pm at the Haji Ali bus stop. Bhise took hold of
Alka’s wrist and when she protested, repeated his demands,” the FIR states.

Alka was
then taken to a nearby hotel, Sharda, where the judge accepted the bribe
amount. But before he could do anything else, ACB sleuths swooped in and
arrested him.

Rajasthan judge is indicted for seeking sexual favours

Chief
Justice of India G B Pattanaik retires tonight and he doesn’t have much to
write home about on the unprecedented drive he launched to enforce judicial
accountability.

After the
PPSC scam fiasco, reported in The Indian Express today, comes the case of the
Rajasthan judge who has been indicted in a sex scandal and yet has escaped
action—pending another inquiry.

On
December 14, a three-judge committee set up by Pattanaik confirmed the
‘‘involvement’’ of Justice Arun Madan of the Rajasthan High Court in a proposition
to a woman doctor to have sex with him in exchange for a judicial favour.

The
committee, headed by the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court
Justice B K Roy, submitted its report to Pattanaik, indicting Madan on a
complaint made from Jodhpur by the woman concerned, Sunita Malviya.

But
Pattanaik has not announced any action against Madan. When contacted by The
Indian Express, Pattanaik confirmed that the committee had indicted Madan and
his ‘‘bad reputation’’ in seeking sexual favours in return for judicial ones.

However,
Pattanaik said that no action was being taken since the committee had also
mentioned allegations of corruption against Madan. And so he had ordered a
further inquiry by the same committee into the corruption charges.

When
asked what he did with the indictment of Madan in the sex scandal, Pattanaik
said, ‘‘That is on hold because I could not have taken piecemeal action against
him….I am praying to God that the final report will give some tangible material
to take action.’’

Highly
placed sources told The Indian Express that when the committee recorded
statements last week in Jodhpur of about 30 persons over four days, it also
came to know of several allegations of corruption against Madan and another
judge of the same high court. The committee put these on record as well.

Pattanaik
said that when he summoned Madan to New Delhi last week, he did not raise the
sex scandal issue and instead limited himself to saying that he was ordering a
further inquiry into corruption allegations.

In
effect, Pattanaik has now passed the Rajasthan buck to his successor Justice V
N Khare.

The gist
of Malviya’s complaint is that Madan made a sexual proposition to her in
October through a deputy registrar of the high court, Govind Kalwani, who said
that the judge would help her, in turn, get out of a criminal case booked
against her.

With
this, Pattanaik’s much-touted in-house judicial accountability seems to have
hit a wall. The first committee’s report into the PPSC scam exonerated one
judge despite evidence and let two others off with a mere slap on the wrist.
The third committee is now busy probing the involvement of judges in the Mysore
sex scam.

Jyothiyamma
has guarded prisoners for over 15 years but it turns out that her priorities
lay in supplying them with the luxuries of outside world, some of them illegal.

An
embarrassed state police is now promising action against Jyothiyamma.

"We
have registered a case under 20 (B) NOPS Act. Under this section the accused if
found guilty can be punished unto 10 years imprisonment and fined up to Rs 1
lakh," says DCP South East BNS Reddy.

Jyothiyamma's
lucrative business came to light after another warden Dilip Kumar caught her supplying a kilo of
marijuana and SIM cards to a prisoner. Police are now investigating how long
she has been running the drug supply business.

"We
have to find out from where she collected the drugs and to whom she was giving
it to. We have also informed the jail authorities about the usage of mobile
phones and it would be better if in the prison the inmates could be
frisked," says Reddy.

Last
year the city police had busted a chain snatching gang operating inside the
jail, which was coordinating its operations through cell phones.

Jyothiyamma's
arrest shows that the effort to crackdown on contraband in jail seems to have
had little effect.

JUDGE SENDING OBSCENE
SMS TO WOMEN

Lucknow
Taking cognisance of the allegation against a civil Judge (junior division) of
Budaun court that he sent obscene SMSes to a woman lecturer, the Registrar
General of Allahabad High Court today sought a report from the district judge
into the matter.

The civil
judge of Gunnor sub-division court of Budaun — Pramod Kumar Gangwar— was
accused of sending obscene SMSes from his cellphone to a woman lecturer of
Classic College of Law, Bareilly. A lecturer of the same college, Vivek Gupta,
was named in the FIR lodged by the victim while Gangwar’s name surfaced in the
primary investigation.

Registrar General Dinesh Gupta said, “The district
judge of Budaun has been asked to send a detailed report into the allegations.
Appropriate action would be taken on the basis of the report.”

District Judge Suresh Kumar Srivastava said, “I have
asked the Bareilly district police to send a report about the matter. The
report on the basis of the police inquiry would be sent to the Allahabad High
Court Registrar General.”

“I am not aware about the matter, as the Bareilly
police did not intimate me before initiating the probe against the civil judge.
They should have informed me when they had received any such complaint,” the
judge added.

Meanwhile, Bareilly CO II Raj Kumar, who is
investigating the case, today recorded the statement of the victim. “I have
collected the call details of the cellphone used for sending the SMSes, but I
have yet to get the address of the person who is subscriber of the SIM card,”
he said.

“The probe is on to verify if the accused in the case
were present on the location recorded in the call details when the SMSes were
sent. The details of the findings of the investigation would be sent to the
Budaun district court to seek the direction,” the CO added.

Asked if the investigation was earlier conducted into
the matter, Raj Kumar said, “The SP (Crime) had initiated probe into the
matter, but I am not aware if the investigation had reached to any conclusion.”

The woman lecturer had lodged an FIR at the Mahila
police station on Thursday alleging she had received obscene SMSes on her
cellphone involving her colleague Vivek Gupta. The preliminary inquiry into the
case by the police yesterday had found that the mobile phone used in the crime
belongs to the civil judge.

Mumbai police chief recommends suspension of DCP, ACP

Mumbai Five
police personnel, including an IPS officer, who allegedly attended a
Christmas-eve party thrown by the Chota Rajan gang, face suspension.

The
suspension of DCP V N Salve, an IPS officer, and ACP Prakash Wani, and three
other police personnel, has been recommended by Mumbai Police Commissioner D
Sivanandan on Saturday.

The Maharashtra government had on Friday ordered an
inquiry into allegations that besides Salve and Wani, senior police inspector
Tulsidas Khakkad, a police inspector of anti-extortion cell and a constable
from Chembur police station had attended the party. "I have recommended to the state government to
initiate disciplinary action against the five policemen and suspend them
pending inquiry," Sivanandan said. He said there were "CCTV footages and photographs
which may prove" that the officials were present at the party held at a
private gymkhana in suburban Chembur. The party was reportedly organised to celebrate the
release of some top-ranking members of the gang. Among them were dreaded D K
Rao, who was released from jail after 13 years of imprisonment, Farid Tanasha
and Sunil Poddar.

Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil had on Friday
ordered the inquiry after photographs and grainy video footage purportedly
showing them were aired on TV channels. Meanwhile, Wani vehemently denied the accusation,
claiming the video clippings and photographs were doctored.

"This is a conspiracy against me. I am a member of
the gymkhana and had gone there with my wife for dinner and not to party with
any gang members," he said. The party was reportedly thrown by Paulson Joseph, a
close aide of Chota Rajan, who is said to be looking after the underworld don's
business interests in Mumbai's suburbs. Sources at the gymkhana said Joseph was a member of the
upmarket club, which charges a membership fee of Rs five lakh, and used to go
there regularly to play cards and party. Speaking strictly on condition of anonymity, they said
that a member could bring along any number of guests after paying Rs 30 for
each of them. "So many people visit the club on the
Christmas-eve and it is not possible to ascertain the identity of each one of
them," they said, when asked if they had spotted any police officer at
Joseph's bash.

Rajasthan launches search for former DIG charged with
rape

JAIPUR:
The Rajasthan government has asked the Special Operations Group (SOG) to find
former deputy inspector general (DIG) Madhukar Tandon who

has been
absconding for the last 13 years after he was chargesheeted for raping a tribal
woman.

"We have handed over the case to the SOG of the Rajasthan Police. It's a
serious matter that Tandon not been arrested since 1997. We want to arrest him
and find out why he's not been arrested so far," state Home Minister
Shanti Dhariwal told reporters here.

A Rajasthan Police party arrived in Noida in Uttar Pradesh Wednesday to
investigate the matter and visited the property that earlier belonged to
Tandon.

Dhariwal has also sought all the files relating to the case.

"I have asked the police to bring all the files relating to Tandon to
me... I want to know the details," he said.

Malli Devi, a resident of Bandikui in Dausa district has alleged that on Jan
21, 1997 she was abducted and taken to Noida where she was allegedly raped by
former DIG Tandon, then posted in the police headquarters and who is now
reported to be absconding.

Khayali Ram, the husband of the victim who was a constable attached to the DIG
said: "It has been 13 years that he ruined me and my family."

"Tandon had summoned my wife to Jaipur from the village on the pretext
that an accident has happened in my family. When she arrived in Jaipur she was
forcefully taken to Noida, to the DIG's residence, where she was
victimised," said Ram.

"I was forced out of the service when I refused to withdraw the case
against Tandon in 2000," he added.

Tandon was suspended in 2002, five years after first FIR was lodged against him
and a magisterial court in Dausa had ordered all his property including his
house in Noida to be attached.

History
of Corruption in Indian Judiciary since Independence: 1947 -
2003

1949: Mr. Justice Sinha only Judge impeached; courtesy Good Judges &
Constitution Framers: Our Fore-Fathers represented by Constituent
Assembly of India framers of Constitution of India then in 1949 (year
before Consitution came into existence) impeached Mr. Justice Sinha;
finding him "guilty of improper exercise of Judicial functions, the
cumulative effect of which was to lower the dignity of his office and
undermine the confidence of the public in the administration of
justiceâ€¦" [008.07].

Such/ similar acts/ behaviours by whom-so-ever including Judges is
since 1971 is covered as an act of Criminal Contempt of Court
[041.05 ]. Not a single Judge is either Impeached or hauled-up for
Contempt till 1991.

Peoples' Inner Hope Courts to maintain their Majesty & Dignity will
prosecute 1000 Judges in context, who have tarnished & undermined the
Fair image of Judiciary.

Let Judges relish Jail for months if not years ; to asses personally
the convinences-N-comforts provided even to innocent citizens or
persons who were not having Rs. 100 to give as Bail. Then they will be
in better position to Transform Jails into Reformation Centres.
Jailing corrupt Judges by Judges , we hope will instill confidence of
people in Courts & law. Who-is-who of India then only will scare to
get into any scam nor Criminals will think of becoming Legislators.

1991-93: Mr. Justice V. Ramaswami ( son-in-law of Chief Justice Mr. K.
Veeraswami [049.04 ] ) : SAWANT COMMITTEE REPORT had held he is guilty
of several charges. Supreme Court of India also upheld guilty of 3-4
charges ; & recommended to Parliament for further action.
Parliamentarians failed in their Duty to Impeach the Sitting Judge of
Supreme Court Mr. Justice V. Ramaswami ; not rising to the Heights of
Eminent Constitution makers ; but chose to have unholy alliance with
Corruption in Judiciary vis-a-vis Legislature & Government.[008.00 ].
Supreme Court which upheld Charges of Mis-Behaviour also , we opine ,
failed to prosecute him under Contempt of Court Act & relevant Laws .
It also failed " To Do Complete Justice" by invoking Article142 .
Criminal Judge was allowed to go scot-free; both by Parliament &
Supreme Court !
Good precedent for other Judges ? If so What kind of message to we-
innocent-Citizens ? For almost complete proceedings in SC &
Parliament: [008.00 ]

1995 A.M. BHATTACHARJEE: The chief justice of the Bombay High
Court was forced to resign in 1995 after it was found that he had
received Rs.70 lakh as book advance from a publishing firm known to
have links with the underworld.

1996 AJIT SENGUPTA: The Calcutta High Court judge made it a
routine to issue ex parte, ad interim stay orders on anticipatory bail
pleas from smugglers having links with the Mumbai underworld. He was
arrested in 1996 for FERA violations after retirement

1994 to 1997: A.M. AHMADI: When he was Chief Justice of India
(October 1994-March 1997), his daughter, a lawyer in the Delhi High
Court, caused eyebrows to be raised for getting "special" treatment
from certain judges. When some members of the bar sought a resolution
banning lawyer relatives of judges from staying in the same house, the
CJI got members to defeat the motion.

2000 A.S. ANAND: As Chief Justice of India. (a) He was accused of
using his position to get the subordinate judiciary to rule in favour
of his wife and mother-in-law in a suit that had been barred by
limitation for two decades.For more: [049.05] [049.05A] [049.05B]
[049.05C] [049.05D] [049.05E ] called as TANGLED PLOT. Also read
Ram
Jethmalani's " BIG EGOS, small men ". (b) Supreme Court , while
he
was CJI,directed a CBI probe after a dispute arose over his age in
2000. The investigation report was not made public.This arose due to
scan copy published in Ram Jethmalani's " BIG EGOS, small men ".

2002: SEX FOR ACQUITTAL
In November 2002, Sunita Malviya, a Jodhpur-based doctor, alleged that
a deputy registrar of the Rajasthan High Court had sought sexual
favours for himself and for Justice Arun Madan to "fix" a case in her
favour. Justice Mr.Â• Arun Madan . Case of Lady Sunita Malviya.STATUS:
A committee set up by former CJI G.B. Pattanaik found prima facie
evidence against Madan, who does not attend court anymore. Judge
Resigned

CASH-FOR-JOB :Three judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court sought
the help of disgraced PPSC chief R.P. Sidhu to ensure that their
daughters and other kin topped examinations conducted by the
commission . Judges are M.L. Singh , Mehtab Sing Gill & Amarbir Singh
STATUS: Two inquiry panels indicted the judges. Gill and Amarbir Singh
have resigned M.L. Singh continues, though no work is allotted to
him.

2002-03: 3 Judges Mysore Sex Scandal ( alleged ) : On Sunday, November
3, 2002, three judges of the Karnataka High Court, along with two
women advocates, allegedly got involved in a brawl with a woman guest
at a resort. The police arrived but reportedly didn't take action.
Judges are N.S. Veerabhadraiah , V. Gopalagowda &Â•
Chandrashekaraiah .STATUS: The three-judge inquiry committee appointed
by the CJI filed its report. Gave clean chit.

March 2003 - Delhi High Court Judge resigns: Suspected of collusion
with Property Developers. Raids by CBI on corrupt higher officials in
Delhi Development Authority (DDA), found Draft Judgement-N-Court
Records

________________________________________
E(I)nquiry-in-camera or In-House Inquiry was & is contrary to Law . Is
ultra vires Article 14 of Constitution of India: " The State shall not
deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of
the laws within the territory of India"
Following Questions / Issues, inter alia , arise

( a ) Enquiry in-camera was held contrary to the observations made by,
Constituent Assembly of India in 1949. In its' Impeachment Order had
held thus:"While we are alive to the desirability, in the interests of
the public, of investigating charges against a Judge in open court, we
held the Enquiry in-camera in view of the allegation made in the
affidavits and the circumstances of the case. This mode of proceeding
should not, however, be regarded as a precedent." [008.07 ].
( b) In the case of similar In-House Inquiry held under the Orders of
Chief Justice of India in Jusice V. Ramaswami's case , Justice
Ramaswami had held that " Inquiring Committee" as well as "
Inquiry"
have no basis & force of law. It is reflected in the Report , which
was read-out by CJI to Advocates & publicised , submitted by 3 Judges
Committee thus" Indeed Justice Ramaswami had made it clear to the
Chief Justice that he did not recognise any such Jurisdiction in any
body or authority."
(c) It will not be out-of place to mention here that Two of "Three
Judges Committee " appointed by CJI in Re. V. Ramaswami's case are
alleged to be involved in Judges Plot 4 Plot.[014.00]. It is like
Criminal investigating another criminal .
( d ) If so how sure can we be that " 3 Judges Committee " appointed
to invetigate " 3 Judges Mysore Sex Scandal " were un-biased or were
above Board & have presented an accurate Report ?
Queries to Supreme Court , Parliament of India & Central Government
In Re. Judges' Mysore Sex Scandal
( a)" Will the Supreme Court Publicise Report of " 3 Judges Committee
" ( all & sundry material); morefully to know whether any evidence
adduced by many in support of Scam is informed to CJI & Supreme
Court ?
(b) What is the Guarantee that despite prima facie evidence Judges of
Supreme Court which consists of Few corrupt Judges seved in Karnataka
are not inclined to take stern action ?
(c) Investigation of a Crime comitted by Minister or anyone lies
within Executive Domain like the case Justice K.Veeraswami, in this
case CBI . Is it not a case of hushing-up & messing-up of " 3 Pillars
of Constitution " ?.
(d) How long will you try keeping suppressed Crimes of Judges of
Supreme Court & High Courts when Union Law Minister Mr. P. Shiva
Shankar , on 28th Nov.1987 said " Supreme Court is filled with FERA
violators & Bride Burnersâ€¦" ( AIR 1988 SC 1208 ). When Chief Justice
Of India Justice E.S. Venkataramaiaha admits that "in every High Court
there are 3-4 Judges who are out every evening to Party in Foreign
Embassiies or at Advocates' placesâ€¦drinkâ€¦dineâ€¦" (1990 Cr LJ
2179 ) [041.09].
(e) 20% of Judges are corrupt , indirectly said Chief Justice of India
Mr. Justice S.P. Bharucha , in other words admitted that 80% of Judges
of India are not corrupt & are above board to be bribed or influnced ?
Then why cases are not filed against 20% of Judges ?